Lethal
by undecided-but I read too much
Summary: AU, OOC, Clary is 11 years old when she is kidnapped and taken to her "dead" father who is the leader of the mob and trains her to be an assassin but as fate would have it, Clary ends up back in the town of her childhood where she is enrolled in her highschool, She meets old faces and some new ones, one face in particular catches her attention and that faces name is Jace. (lemons)
1. Prologue

**_A/N/: Hey everyone this is my first fanfiction, I have written some of my original stories on Quotev under MomentKiller so if you like this you can check that out. I am really excited about this story, so updates might come soon but I am very incosistant I aim at least one update every two weeks. Just to let you know this chapter is set when Clary is 11 years old. So seven years earlier than when she is 18. I hope you enjoy, PLEASE review!_**

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**_Prologue_**

**_7 years earlier_**

"Simon!" I shouted to my best friend across the playground.

"What?" he asked running towards me.

"Who's it?" I asked when he got closer. He smiled deviously and took another step closer so he could tap me on the shoulder.

"You.," he said and started running away, laughing at his own trickery. I gasped in mock outrage and chased after him.

"You are so dead!" I yelled at him, pumping my arms and trying to run at full speed to catch up with him, but my short legs weren't made for running and I eventually gave up. I looked around to see anyone from the game we were playing; I spotted Jordan hiding by a tree and started to run towards him when a teacher stopped me.

"Clary," Mrs. Hemway said, my 5th grade teacher looked hesitant and sadness outlined her eyes. "You are needed in the office. Your mother is waiting to pick you up; she said you do not need to bring your bag she'll get it tomorrow. Now quick hurry, she said it was urgent." Mrs. Hemway grabbed me by my upper arm and started leading me towards the office.

"Can I just say goodbye to Simon, he'll wonder where I'm going," I whined, and was slightly curious as to what my mum was doing here. She never picks me up from school, we live a quiet life on top of my mum's art store and she spends all her time painting and trying to pay the rent; we have no credit cards so everything we do must be done in cash. I've asked her why we don't and she just says that she doesn't trust them.

Mrs. Hemway looks sympathetic for a moment then her face hardens. "No," she says in a voice that leaves no room for argument. She continues to drag me away from the playground. When we are out of sight from the playground she begins to pull me away from the office too.

"Hey, you missed the off-" I begin to say but she cuts me off and puts one of her gloved hands over my mouth. I stop walking but she picks me up around the waist and starts carrying me, I scream and cry and try to kick her when I see a black car on the road, but her grip is like iron and I can't get free. The passenger door opens and a man with light blonde hair steps out. His lips stretch into a smile when he sees me, revealing perfect white teeth.

"Excellent," he says in a smooth voice, I glare at him and try biting the hand over my mouth to no avail. At least I'm on the ground now, but Mrs. Hemway's grip withstands my tugs.

"Sorry about this dear," the man says, and Mrs. Hemway lets go of my mouth but before I can scream, he presses a tissue to my nose. I struggle but eventually everything goes black.

When I wake up I'm on a couch, it's leather and expensive not at all like our yellow comfy couch at home. Looking around the room I can see that everything looks expensive, like I might break it if I touched it. I carefully slide off the foreign couch and my bare feet sink into the carpet. Wait, _bare feet?_ Looking down I see that I am in a pair of black plain flannel pyjamas. When I move to the window I see what looks like New York below me, I'm on the top floor of a very, _very _tall building. I have never been to New York but I've seen pictures and in the pictures there are lots of yellow cabs and that's what it looks like from the top of whatever building I'm in.

Scanning the room again I check the door, locked of course. There is a large desk at one end of the room, this must be someone's office. I run over to the desk and start tugging on the drawers; again, they are all locked too. I begin to panic and pick up the phone on the desk; there is no dial tone, I put down the phone dejectedly when a hidden door in the corner flies open. The man with pale hair walks in looking like he owns the place, he probably does, a younger boy follows him in. He looks about my age maybe a year or two older; he has the same blonde hair.

"Ah, good Clarissa you're up," he smiles at me as I back away from the desk, _his _desk I realise as he sits down; the boy stands to his right behind him, his expression blank.

"H-how do you know my name? What am I doing here? Who are you? What do you want?" The questions spill out of my mouth with rising hysteria.

"So many questions little one, firstly I am Valentine Morgenstern, I know your name because I helped name you, and you are here because I want you to be," he says calmly.

I blink taken aback, "What do you mean _helped name me?_" I narrow my eyes at him.

He laughs softly, "So she hasn't told you…" Valentine mutters and smiles again, "Clarissa darling, you have never seen or met your father since you were weeks old." He doesn't say it like a question, he _knows._

"My father is dead. He died in a car accident when I was a baby," I say with certainty, this is what my mum has always told me.

Now Valentine laughs hard. "I know for a fact that your father is alive," he says seriously after he stops laughing.

"What do you mean? H-how…" I drift off not sure what to say, my father is dead. My mum wouldn't lie… "You're lying," I tell him.

"No I am not. I am the leader of the mob," he breaks off and looks at me. "Do you know what that is?" I nod, he looks slightly happy that I know what that is, "Anyway I train and run the best professional assassins in the business, your mother didn't want you brought up in that environment so she took you away and into hiding." I think of the credit cards and avoiding cameras, never letting me go in anything where I might get my name in the paper, like the Premiers Reading Challenge. "I found you recently, and I think you have it in you to be one of the best assassins in the world because it is in your blood, and I want to train you. I have been selecting children from around the world to train, in fact Jonathon here," he gestures to the boy behind him, "is my best junior apprentice, but I believe that you and him could be just as good as your father, me."

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**Tell me what you think and please review! I have big plans for this story**


	2. Chapter 1- Congratulations

**_A/N/: Hey everyone, this is a re-write of chapter 1. this chapter had been bugging me for weeks and now since my story has gone viral among my friends, i finally decided it was time to get off my ass and re-write. It's still basically the same except, for the sex scene ( I meant to make it better but I think I made it worse... in a different way ;) ) So tell me if you think it's better or not. Oh and chapter 8 should be up soon, it's with my beta as I type._**

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**CHAPTER 1**

3

The number lights up. A computerized voice reads it out. In three seconds it will be the biggest fight of my life. My mind briefly flashes back to when I was just beginning here, I was eleven. I wouldn't even recognise myself now, at eighteen I am one of the best.

2

I'm the favourite in this fight; I'm always the favourite in every fight. Unless I'm sparring against Jonathon; that's always a dead heat. I don't know who I'm fighting today. I can only see the heavy black curtain down the middle of the small black room; my opponent awaits me on the other side. I have been trained to be here; to defeat and be ready for whoever or whatever (trained dogs and other animals have been behind that curtain before) is behind the curtain. I can't hesitate.

1

Nervousness slithers through me like a snake that coils in my gut. But so does adrenaline, it courses through my veins shifting my brain into fight mode. I don my attack stance and prepare myself for battle. I can feel the snake shifting in my stomach becoming fierce and determined, I will defeat my enemy. I will _kill_ my enemy. Well not _literally_. We're not allowed to, because even the losers are good, just not good enough.

GO

The curtain is swept away out of sight; I don't let my gaze follow, rookie mistake, my eyes go straight to my opponent. He is male, at least 6'4, this could be easy. I am in the corner and I know it will take him a few seconds to see me, I use these few seconds to my advantage. He pauses when he doesn't see me (Rookie mistake #1) and I fly into attack. Darting along the wall I come at him from behind giving him a hard kick to the lower back.

He grunts and his back arches. I wait, bouncing a little as he swings around in a punch. Ducking under the meaty fist and raising an uppercut to his jaw. His head bounces up on impact and he gets his first good look at me. His eyes widen as he recognises me, in other words he freezes (Rookie mistake #2). He knows he doesn't stand a chance. I am the best and that's half the game. In combat skill is necessary, but if you have excellent fighting skills and everyone knows it, then comes a reputation. Everyone has a reputation, mine is that I am fearless, ruthless, skilled and sexy, don't ask about the last one, in other words: Lethal.

When he snaps out of it he kicks out in a sweep. I jump, easily dodging the simple attacks, but I have to make this go longer, too short and I have to do it again. He growls and goes for the right hook; I duck easily, being short has its advantages. This is a bit sad, I think as I play with him a bit more, he makes a swing, I dodge and deliver my own. But it gets boring fast, this is too easy. I long for an equal opponent; one I can truly fight with.

Getting restless I reach for my weapon; we are allowed one weapon of our choice, I can see the gun in his belt, stupid choice. I slide the knife I concealed on my calf out, gripping it easily in my hand. It was like it belonged there, like it was made for _my_ hand.

My knife is an extension of my arm, its smooth blade shined in the dim light. My upper body strength wasn't what I could use in this fight, with my small, slight frame I had to rely on my knife, my legs, and my speed.

His eyes widen at my weapon, he panics and charges at me; I begin to wonder how this guy even got through level 1, let alone level 6. I counter the charge with a firm kick to his stomach, knocking him backwards and onto the floor. I follow, stalking after him and before he has a chance to react I am on top of him, straddling his hips and eliminating the use of his legs. He reaches for the gun and pulls it out of the holster; it was a Taser, so it wouldn't kill me but it would mean loss and I can't allow that. Just as quickly as he pulled it out I stabbed him, sliding my knife cleanly through his hand. He screams in pain, but I'm not affected when I'm this close to a kill I'm like a robot, emotionless. It has the desired effect though; he drops the gun. He surprises me by punching me in the jaw with his good hand, my head flies back and black dots spot my vision. _I need to end this._

I shake my head and faster than a snake, I have my knife unwavering against his throat, one millimetre closer and I would pierce his skin; he freezes and bright lights flood the room and the computerized voice comes back on.

"Winner, Clarissa Morgenstern. Loser, Meliorn Fay." The computerised voice has no emotion, it reflects my mood. But soon enough the full weight of what happened floods down on me. I won, I _won. _Depending on this score, I'll get a good job with the company, maybe get to travel… Paris… Berlin… Sure I'll go there to kill people but everyone dies, eventually.

As we walk out of the room my dad can barely keep the smile off his face, he's talking to some important looking people. Everyone is dressed elegantly in crisp black suits. I recognise some of the faces, board leaders mostly. When the crowd notices me, a wave of silence falls, followed by cheers. My dad turns from his conversation and his grin widens, my own mouth stretches into a smile to match.

"Very nice Clarissa. Classy, graceful almost. You dance the line of death in style my little one," the people around him nod in agreement.

I blush under his praise, my dad may be the most dangerous and some would say 'evil' man in the world, but he's still my father and I love him.

"You probably want to celebrate with Jonathon, I heard he won his Final Combat Exam too," he continues with a wink. I blush and silently damn my red hair. My love life is no secret around here and everyone assumes that just because we are the "power couple" we have this amazing adventurous sex life. I mean it's ok, but why does _everybody _need to hint at it. It's not like I'm like Seb and Izzy, who for some strange reason decided to go at it in the public library, because _that's _going to end well.

The halls of the Institute (what us students nicknamed the building) are immaculate, level upon level of glistening white tiles, and floors that clack against high heeled shoes; Izzy and I quickly became experts at sneaking around on the hard floors in stilettos. A very important skill needed in order to sneak out to night clubs. That, and fake ID's, luckily I excel at both.

The FCE is taken in the top three floors, the after party however is held in the basement.

My blush deepens, my sex life is no secret when it comes to Jon; we have what you would call a very physical relationship. No one would ever dare say anything to either of us about it though, I guess if the Institute had a 'power couple' it would be us; the best of our gender in every field, it's like the quarterback and the head cheerleader in those crappy chick flicks that Izzy makes us watch sometimes when she feels we've lost our essential _girliness._

I walk down the long clean white corridors of the building and take the lift up to the 20th floor, the recreation floor, AKA the party floor. When I reach it, it has transformed into a club. Half our class, (everyone who won their FCE) is partying and dancing to the loud thumping music, it seems the senior class has taken over the dance floor. I begin to make my way through the crowd and get to the other side where the entrance to the senior dorms is.

Quickly running to my room through the crowd, I jump in the shower and quickly rinse off. Slipping into a bathrobe, I eye the clothes that Izzy has laid out for me to wear: leather pants that fit me like a second skin, a white mid-thigh length dress with my favourite black stiletto ankle boots. I slip on one of my sexier sets of lingerie and blow dry my hair, then brush it into long natural waves before sliding into my outfit.

When I get back the party is even busier, a few of the losers were coming in looking mildly depressed but still happy they graduated, although some of them have to repeat this year, they will announce later who got top of the class. I start moving through the crowd, when I see Izzy I brighten. She looked heartbreaking in her own short black dress and strappy six inch heels, her long black hair is out, like a shiny curtain as it sways with her body as she dances.

"Hey!" I yell when I see her. She turns and smiles when she sees me, taking me in from the boots up.

"I knew you would look fabulous in that," she smirks. Izzy has made it her personal mission ever since I met her to train me in my fashion sense. Assassins have a certain class, and being trained every day of our lives keeps us all in excellent shape, with bodies that any girl would happily pay millions for. "They just don't realise the effort that goes on behind the scenes to look this good," is what Izzy would say whenever girls in the streets stared enviously at us.

I grin at her and we begin to dance together. Since no guy will dance with me because they know who my boyfriend is, I have to make do with dancing with my best friend and gay people, who are "non-threatening." I used to think Jon's jealousy was cute but now… eh.

Izzy and I start laughing and she tells me about the girl she fought and how she almost started shaking when she saw her. Izzy is almost 6 foot and known to be very deadly with a few accidental kills under her belt, but no one cares in a place like this. If you get killed in training, you obviously aren't good enough to be here anyway. She's telling me about her almost too easy win when I catch sight of our boyfriends making their way through the crowd. I grin deviously and nudge Izzy with my elbow, she catches sight of my eyes and spots the two boys coming towards us then she looks back at me, smiles, and winks.

We begin to grind our backs together in time to the music looking like we're re-enacting something from _Dirty Dancing. _When the boys reach us their eyes widen as they look at us. Jon grins and pulls me to him, we begin to dance and he places his hands on my hips from behind. We move against each other in time to the music.

"You're in a good mood," He whispers huskily to my ear, "had a good FCE then?" I nod, _like he doesn't already know._

"I was thinking we should celebrate," he nibbles my earlobe and smiles against my neck, brushing my hair back.

"Seems like I'm not the only one in a good mood," I whisper seductively back and grind myself against the hard lump in my back. I spin around in his arms so I can thread my hands through his light blonde hair. I rub my hips against his and our mouths clash together. The kiss is all teeth and tongue as we battle for dominance, he wins and explores my mouth, a low moan escapes the back of my mouth.

"Get a room!" Izzy yells at us from where she and her boyfriend Sebastian are dancing.

We break apart, our foreheads resting together and smile at each other.

"You want to stay?" he whispers his lips inches from mine.

"Not even a little bit," I whisper back breathless from the kiss.

"I think we will," Jon says louder back to Izzy.

Seb smirks as Izzy gapes. "Really, you're blowing off the party?" she asks incredulously, "and what for? Hot, celebratory monkey sex? Actually that's not a bad idea…." She turns to Seb, who is looking extremely happy and amused at his girlfriend's thought process.

"Let's get out of here," I say to Jon, not really wanting to see Izzy and Seb start making out in the middle of the dance floor. He leads me off to his room at the end of the corridor, the best thing about his room? It's soundproof.

The door slams shut behind us, I quickly lock it before turning around and meeting Jon's hungry kiss with my own. My back slams into the wall and I wrap my legs around his hips. The only time when I enjoy being manhandled is during sex, and Jon knows it.

He trails fiery kisses down my neck and sucks at the spot at the bottom. I moan loudly and my thighs grip him harder. I fiddle with his belt, and manage to get it off, throwing it onto the bed for later. I run my fingers along the inside of his jeans and he shudders, slowly, teasingly, I reach a hand inside and wrap it around his long, hard length. He jolts sharply and moans against my neck. I squeeze him lightly and he starts moving us towards the bed.

Our mouths remain locked as we crash into the bed temporarily knocking the air out of me. I grin against his lips and start to back up on the mattress. His lips stretch into a predatory smile as he watches me. Then, slowly he climbs after me. He's a lion and I'm the fawn, he's going to catch me and I want him to. He grabs me by the hips and drags me to him, deftly undoing my fly and button with one hand.

"You're getting good at that," my voice is low as I watch him. He smiles and peels my pants off slowly.

"I've had a lot of practice," he says and I remove my dress just as slowly and he stops for a moment staring at the see-through black lace bra and matching panties.

"Have you always been this sexy?" he asks. "Oh, wait. Yes, you have," he says answering his own question, I smile at him.

"It's not fair to have a shirt on," I pout and reach for him. Graciously he leans forward so that I can undo every button on his shirt. I trail a finger down his naked chest, drinking in his hard earned abs, then push back his shirt so it is completely off.

He smiles and leans down to kiss me again. His experienced fingers undo my bra and toss it across the room. His face begins to move lower until his mouth latches onto one of my nipples, he swirls it around with his tongue and palms the other one, switching until they are like little pebbles on my chest. I gasp and shudder, running my fingers through his hair.

I squirm as he goes lower, his long fingers tease the edges of my ruined panties before pulling them off. I moan loudly as he slides his fingers over my nether regions. I gasp when he begins to pump two fingers into me. His lips close around my clit and a pleasure shoots down to my toes. I rub myself against him and a welcome coil tugs in my stomach.

"Jon…" I gasp in warning. Then, unbelievably he stops.

"I didn't want you to be tired for what I'm about to do to you," he says innocently.

"No," I say getting mad, "You tease me, now it's my turn," I say and grab the belt I chucked on the bed earlier. I flip us over and his eyes widen at the sight of the belt, he chuckles nervously.

"Scared sweetie?" I ask innocently, he gulps. My voice changes, it goes deeper, "you should be," I whisper into his ear and he shudders.

Straddling him, I pull his arms up to the slots in the headboard of the bed and secure them with the belt. I look down at him stretched out a before me, a rush of heat shoots between my legs. I _like _him like this.

Bending over I slowly trail my mouth down his stomach kissing, sucking and gently biting and scraping my teeth over the hard bumps of his abdomen. When I reach his groin I tug his jeans and boxers the rest of the way down his legs. His length now completely exposed, I wrap one hand firmly around him and start pumping it up and down, watching as he grows harder and bigger.

I notice him moaning and straining against the belt and smile. I sit up on my knees and brush the head of his cock against me, he and I both moan at the wonderful friction.

"Ah, ah," I chide him and put a finger to his lips. "Not a word," I say and open the bedside table taking out two things. "You'll need this," I say and place a piece of leather between his teeth, his pupils are dilated and he's breathing fast, I can tell how much this is turning him on.

I take the condom and roll it on the hooker way, with my mouth. The leather muffles another moan and again he strains against the restraints. Letting go of his cock I brush myself against him again. I groan and try to hide my impatience. I want him inside me. Now.

Spreading my legs a bit and bracing myself in position I slowly lower myself onto him. Both of us moan at the feeling. I continue to lower myself using my thigh muscles until he's completely embedded in me. That wonderful fullness fills me as I am stretched to my limits.

Suddenly I kick it up a notch working my muscles so that I ride him, pleasure shoots through me, and that feeling in my stomach returns with a vengeance. Vaguely I'm aware of a ripping noise and then strong arms are pulling me against him and the leather strip is out of his mouth, our lips never leave each other's.

He flips us over so that he is pounding into me and I lose track of time. Everything blurs into movements and sounds, the panting and constant moans.

"Tell me you like it," he demands roughly at one point. It takes me a moment to be able to respond. When I do it's a whimper. He smiles and kisses under my ear.

When I finally climax, I can feel it all through my body. Jon cums soon after, his body going limp and crushing mine.

"You broke the belt," I say dazedly after a few minutes. He looks at the roughly torn belt and then at the red marks around his wrists.

"Yeah," he says abashed, "I just couldn't take the torture any more, I had to touch you." He smiles slightly and I giggle high from endorphins.

"Yeah, well that'll teach you not to be such a tease," I joke poking him in the ribs.

"But the sex…" he trails off and I know what he means.

"Yeah it was… there are no words," I say and he nods in agreement. We stare at the ceiling for a few more minutes when he suddenly turns his head to look at me.

"Wait, there is one," he argues, "I've been meaning to say this: Congratulations."


	3. Chapter 2- New Assignment

_**A/N/: Hey everyone, this is really good for me. I don't usually update this fast but I'm in Just-started-a-new-story fever and am just pumping out these chapters with having to think about it. I hope you enjoy and thanks to the one person who reviewed so far, I love you reviews make my day... week... rest of writing story time... anyway if you actually bother to read this I congratulate you, and I hope you enjoy the chapter. Just to let you know Jonathon IS NOT related to Clary. so yeah I hope you enjoy... bye**_

_**I always forget to put in the disclaimer... so here it is:**_

_**Disclaimer**_

_**I do not own any of these wonderful characters they belong to Cassandra Clare :'(  
But... wait for it... I DO own the story and the plot line. So all is not lost... yeah I have a bad sense of humour**_

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**CHAPTER 2**

My alarm clock goes off at 4:30am, this is normal. Everyone starts the day way before dawn, we have half an hour to get ready and breakfast is served at 5:00. Rolling over I press myself back against Jon's stomach. Gently I pressing my lips to his.

"Wake up honey," he smiles against my lips and wraps his arms around my waist pulling me tight against him.

"Good Morning darl," he whispers against my neck.

"You're in a good mood," I say surprised when I feel something hard pushing against my inner thigh. "A _very _good mood," I say looking down pointedly. He laughs and kisses me hard again on the lips…

We barely make it to breakfast in time.

"Someone's in a good mood," Izzy says when we reach our breakfast table, "Or should I say; someone just had morning sex." She smiles as I blush and look down while Sebastian chokes on his orange juice. Jon grins broadly and wraps an arm around my shoulder.

"Damn straight," he says and sits down across from Sebastian. I take the seat next to him, across from Izzy.

"You like to be straight to the point, don't you?" I say to her shrewdly.

"Yep," she grins and hands me a fruit salad, I have the same thing for breakfast every day and a long time ago Iz and I made a pact that whoever arrived first would pick up our breakfast for both of us.

"Thank you," I sing when I see the food, "I'm starving." I grab the food and begin to stuff pieces of fruit in my mouth.

"I wonder why…" Izzy winks. I blush again. "You can't be so sexy and innocent at the same time!" Izzy laughs.

"Yes you can, Lissa is every day," Jon defends. I should explain, my nickname is Lissa, my father hated my last nickname of Clary. He said it was from my old life with my mother, so it went from Clary to Lissa, although my father always calls me by my full name.

"Hey, rumour has it that Valentine's going to be taking some of the new graduates into an undercover mission to infiltrate a high school, so sorry Jon; that leaves you out." Jon is two years older than us, but he graduated with us because he was the exception and he was in the same year as us, I had to catch up. Which I did of course.

The morning announcer walked into the room and started telling which groups where to go; I was in group 1 so I was going to be at sniper practice.

"Please report to your station now, except for Isabelle Lightwood, Clarissa Morgenstern, Sebastian Verlac, and Jonathon Lilith. Please report to Valentine's study. Everyone immediately got up put their rubbish in the bin and walked to their stations. Our table looked at each other, then broke our smiling. We got the job.

Everything in this building is pristine. The clean white corridors and the plush white carpets, it amazes me that anything would be white in this place where many people get bloodied and injured but somehow it never gets stained. When we arrive at the study, there are already people in there including Maryse Lightwood (Izzy's mum) and Hodge, there are a few other board members but those two are the biggest board members and the director, my dad.

` "Welcome, please take a seat," Valentine says gesturing to four empty seats, two on either side of him, we take our seats with me sitting next to Izzy and Jon next to Seb. Looking around the table I see everyone has carefully blank faces, it is one of the first things they teach you here, not to show emotion, not to look scared or better yet not to _be_ scared.

"Now I would guess that most of you know why you're here?" He looks at each of us and we nod, "You have been specially selected to go undercover and kill this woman," he flips the folder in front of him open and gestures for us to do the same. I flip open my folder and study the woman on the front, she has caramel hair and a thin face, she looks very serious.

"This is Imogen Herondale," Valentine explains, and suddenly understanding floods through me; Imogen is the leader of a government organization like the FBI or CIA, she is the one who stops companies like ours. "Her grandson attends the school you will be attending, unfortunately we do not know who he is or what he looks like, but we are aware that he goes to the school, so I urge you to be cautious." He looks dead serious, "Jonathon, obviously you are too old being 20 to enrol in the school so you will help by assuming the head position from here," Jonathon nods, but I can see that he is unhappy about this.

"Everyone please turn the page," Valentine continues, I do and drop the folder. Everyone turns to stare at me with curiosity. I know this high school, it's in Idris where I grew up, where almost everyone one from my primary school went.

"Valentine…" I say, and throw him a questioning glance, "they'll recognise me." All my friends stare at me, only Jon knows I haven't been here my whole life.

"Yes, they will. But you will tell them that you are emancipated and ran away all those years ago, it's the story the police put up, and you decided to come back with some of your friends." He gestures at Izzy and Seb, "and you wished to finish off your high school years in the place you grew up. Can you do that?" I nod.

"Yes Sir" I say.

"Good. You leave tonight and your clothes have already been packed, any other items from your room you wish to take you may pack now and bring them to the helicopter pad on the roof."

The trip to Idris takes a few hours, well just outside Idris, it would be too conspicuous to arrive via helicopter to a small town in the middle of nowhere. On the way I explain to my friends about my life before I turned eleven, they are all shocked but I just shrug and brush it off as not that big a deal.

It's midnight when we arrive and we have to go to school the next day. I have read my case file. Imogen has been snooping around our company trying to gather evidence; she has to be eliminated, but first we need to gather all the information she has found out about us and destroy it.

There is one high school in Idris, so unless people from my primary school moved away they went to Idris High, home of the Infectious Insects! It has got to be the saddest mascot in history. We are staying in apartments opposite each other, Sebastian and Izzy are sharing and I'm by myself across hall. I miss Jon but I can only contact him at certain times when we can't be picked up by Imogen's company.

We shared a kiss at the launch pad but I haven't been allowed to contact him since. It's 2:00am when I finally go to sleep and I have to get up 7:00, but I have been trained to operate on 4 hours sleep so 5 should be no problem… I was wrong.

_BEEP, BEEP, BEEP_

I jump startled in my bed and shut off my alarm clock. My eyes feel glued together and I don't want to get out of bed. I guess the impending school day has that effect, normally I get up at 4:30 and I don't have a problem because I have an action packed day ahead of me.

Dragging myself out of bed I walk into the shower and let the steaming hot water wake me up. It soothes the nervous muscles bunching in my back, after that I decide to try and look somewhat appealing for today, if I'm making my grand appearance after being missing 7 years I may as well look good. I blow dry and straighten my red hair into a long silky wall and slip into a sundress with some flat sandals applying minimum make up to give me a very innocent care-free look I don't want to look too dangerous on my first day, plus it's autumn and in Idris autumn is a few degrees (by a few I mean 2) cooler than summer so it will be like 28°C today which is torturous to send kids to school in by the way. So no leather pants for me today… or any day in the near future.

I walk over the hall way to find Izzy and Sebastian fighting and complaining about the early morning heat… but all their fights end up in some serious make out sessions so you don't really want to be in the room by the end of it… or the middle come to think of it.

"Guys, guys…GUYS!" They stop fighting and look at me, I don't even know how they manage to fight about the _weather. _"Are you ready to go?" Izzy opens her mouth but I beat her to it, "Izzy you look fine. We can stop for breakfast on the way, there's a little café near the high school. Ok? Great, let's go," I finish by making a big sweeping towards the door. They shut their mouths nod and mumble apologies, I'm not sure if they're to me or each other.

We walk to the café in the warm humid morning air. I didn't realize how much I missed the clean fresh sticky air until now. I've been living in smog for 7 years but this is so much nicer. Everything around here is green and the roads are very wide, not at all like the crowded New York streets, there are one or two cars and that's about it. Idris is at the bottom of a valley, there is forest on either side and mountains surround the area, meaning a never accurate weather report, to guess the weather you have to look outside.

The humidity makes my clothes stick to me but I'm used to it and so is everyone else around here. Izzy and Seb are not. And they make that obvious by complaining. Loudly.

"Lissssaaa!" Izzy whines making my name sound like it has way too many s' and a's. "What the fuck is wrong with the weather here?" she whines louder, pulling off her cashmere jumper and shoving it at me, I laugh and stuff it into her $500 _Prada _tote bag, she didn't bring a backpack. Let me rephrase, she refused to use that, "_icky, sweaty, horrible, fucked up bag,"_ so instead she's going full New Yorker on the small townies, I feel sorry for them, I really do.

When we reach the café the air conditioning is on already, Izzy and Sebastian look visibly relieved as the cool air hits them.

"Do you guys want to sit outside?" I ask smirking. The looks they give me could melt the polar ice caps.

"So what's actually good here… at…?" Izzy stumbles clearly unable to be bothered to remember the name of the store.

"Java Jones," Seb supplies helpfully smiling at his girl as she bites her lip at the food, probably wondering how many calories are in them.

"It's all good," a sickeningly familiar voice replies. My stomach drops not because I don't want to see him… but I don't want to see my best friend after I left unexplained 7 years ago.

"Really?" Izzy says like she seriously doubts it.

"Are you guys new in town?" the voice asks. I haven't lifted my head up, just letting my dark red hair cover my face completely.

"Yeah, we're from New York. But are friend Lissa used to live here," Sebastian responds. Here goes nothing… I lift my head up just as the boy looks at me. He hasn't changed all that much. The same unruly dark brown hair, glasses perched askew on the end of his nose. He glances at me with a smile, then blinks, he has to do a double take, triple take, then his eyes widen to impossible sizes when he recognizes me.

"_Clary?" _His voice was breathless, unsure and his face showed his disbelief. I loved him not in the 'I want to get married' way, but in the 'You're are my bestest friend in the whole world' way, and I didn't realise just how much I missed him until now, it hit me like a ton of bricks. My eyes filled with tears.

"Hi Simon."

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**_Hope you enjoyed it, please review!_**


	4. Chapter 3- Simon and a new Face

**_A/N/: Hey everyone don't expect daily updates after this chapter because school holidays end tomorrow and I have to do homework for the rest of today :( and I keep using this as an excuse to put it off. So thank-you to "Guest" who sent me a lovely review it made my day. I'm really enjoying this story. So anyway I'm still looking for a beta so if anyone would like to be it (you get to read the chapters early ;) please PM me otherwise please review and tell me what you think. P.S. Hint about this chapter... someone we love who hasn't been in it so far makes a fabulous appearance ;)_**

**_Disclaimer_**

**_I don't not own the characters they all belong to Cass Clare (sadly :'( )_**

**_But I DO own the story and the plot (same diff really...)_**

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**CHAPTER 3**

Time stops. Simon freezes. I can't hear anything due to the blood rushing in my ears. _What will he say? What will he do? He's going to hate me. He is going to hate me so much._

Some of the water in my eyes leaks out, I can feel it trickle down my cheek. _What is happening to me? _I never cry. Ever. I didn't even cry when I popped my arm out of its socket, I didn't cry when I broke my leg, I didn't even cry when I got kidnapped… But I cry when reuniting with long lost friends… _When did I become such a sap?_

Simon breaks the silence by throwing his arms around me in a hug. I hug him back burying my face in his chest, and letting out a small sob, "I'm so, so sorry Simon," I whisper against him.

"Shhh," he soothes, "I'll kill you later." I hiccup a laugh, I forgot how funny Simon was, for a few moments I pretend that the last 7 years never happened; I forget that I'm here to kill someone, that I'm a trained assassin, that I have a killer for a boyfriend, that I ever got kidnapped. I remember Simon… I remember the night we spent sleeping next to each other and staring at the ceiling and then getting so bored of that, that in the middle of the night we got some glow-in-the-dark star stickers. We'd printed off pictures of real constellations and recreated them on my roof in the middle of the night so we could be "star gazing" instead of staring at a black ceiling. And then for my tenth birthday, getting a telescope and actually star gazing every weekend. The camping trips with Luke and my mum where Simon and I would insist on taking said telescope then complaining the whole hike that we had to carry it and that we would never do it again. Then upon seeing the stars from the top of the mountain, changing our minds and doing it all over again. I remember all those times, and the little times, when I fell down and he was there to catch me, Simon was the best-est friend anyone could ever ask for.

Eventually we break away and I look over at Izzy and Seb, they have their brows raised at me then turn away to order breakfast. I look back at Simon and he seems to be intent of memorizing my entire face.

I break the silence, "What are you doing here?" is the only thing I can think of.

"What am _I_ doing here? I work here and I think that the far better question is what are _you _doing here and _where_ have you been for the last… I don't know… SEVEN YEARS?!" Simon yells the last bit and some of the customers turn to stare. I glare at them in a way I have perfected over the years; they quickly look down, scared.

"What about we sit down," I say calmly, leading him over to a table. I choose the table in the corner, it's secluded so we can talk without anyone listening in, it's really more of a booth then table. I slide in on one side and Simon sits adjacently.

"Ok so…" How do I start, Simon knows me, he'll never believe the _runaway_ story; I need to make this authentic. "A month before I left I got a letter from my dad telling me he wanted to meet me," I pause making this up on the spot, Simon interrupts.

"Your father is dead. Isn't he?"

"No. He's not, he's very much alive and 7 years ago I decided I wanted to meet him and he convinced me to live with him." I finish thinking this is going very smoothly.

"You would _never _leave your mum and me and your friends without telling someone where you were going, you love… or should I say _loved _your mum." Simon looks hurt and a stab of ice plunges through my heart at the mention of my mother. "You almost killed her when you left, you know? She shut down the shop for months and didn't come out of her room. She broke up with Luke at least 20 times but he stayed with her, thank God. She hasn't been the same since you left," each word he said went straight to the heart until I think there was more ice sticking into it then muscle.

"I didn't mean to-"

"Bullshit. You knew what leaving would do to her, to me," he breaks off. "You knew… and you did it anyway. You didn't even call… I thought, we thought," he corrects himself, "that you were dead."

"I was _eleven. _I was too scared to come back." This is almost true, I was too scared of getting killed trying to leave, "And scared of what would happen if I called what you would say… what you would do…" This is almost true too, I was scared of what Valentine would do to me if I tried calling home, not that I was allowed anywhere near a phone for years. But it was always nice to daydream except when those dreams turn into nightmares, day-mares?

"We would have got you, why are you back now?" he asks slightly exasperated.

"I'm here because I'm 18 and emancipated and I wanted to finish school in my hometown and some of my friends wanted to come too," I explain, this is actually what I'm supposed to say, what I'll tell everyone else, including my mum.

"Listen," I begin. "You can't tell anyone what I just told you, about my father or anything. I don't want anyone to know. Not even my mum, I only told you because you would never in a million years believe the cover story, okay?" I look him straight in the eyes, silently begging him to agree.

"Fine, what's the cover story? You ran away caught a bus to New York City and met those friends over there, whose parents graciously let you stay with," Simon says.

I blush and look down, "Um, yes?" Nervously I look at his expression, it's the face of a smart person when someone says something really dumb.

"Ok… let's see how many people believe that…" he mumbles mostly to himself.

"Ok brighter topics? What have you been doing the last 7 years?" I ask in a bright fake cheerful way.

"Um, well. I'm in a band," he says going along with the bright, cheerful voice. "Well, Eric started it but I'm the guitarist." He smiles, "We're going through names at the moment."

I smile too, "Oh yeah? What have you got so far?"

"We're debating between Sea Vegetable Conspiracy or Rock Solid Panda."

"They're both terrible," I say laughing. He laughs too.

"Well Eric suggested Lawn Chair Crisis," Simon says as if that's better.

"Eric? As in the one that thought the world was flat in 5th grade?" I ask still laughing.

"That would be the one."

"Oh yeah, you should totally take advice from him."

"Oi!" Simon says mock offended. "He got smarter!" Then he burst out laughing, "You should hear his poetry tonight… It's worse than his band names."

"Is that possible?" I ask curious.

"Apparently yes, in fact I promised I'd be at his poetry reading tonight, it's being held here. Would you like to hear some absolutely terrible poetry? You know, help me through it?"

"Sure, that would be f-" I start to say but was cut off by Izzy.

"Come on old friends, we can't be late for our first day, Oh and Lissa I got you some highly caffeinated coffee," Izzy says.

"Thank you," I say gratefully.

"Lissa?" Simon asks raising an eyebrow.

"Nickname. My dad didn't like Clary, I kind of miss Clary…" I'm not sure I meant for the last part to be out loud.

"Well, you'll be Clary around here. And one more question… When did you get hot?" Izzy and Sebastian burst out laughing and I slapped him (not hard) across the cheek.

The first thing that I notice about Idris High is that it _hasn't _changed. At all. The same brick buildings and the same large ovals round the back, the same painted metal gates. They even had the same old sign that was missing the first "I" in "Idris" and the "g" in "High" so the sign said: _Welcome to dris Hi h_. I almost face palmed at the sight of it.

I get quite a few stares and everyone seems to be whispering and staring at me, Izzy, and Seb. Those who recognise me do double takes. Although most don't in a small school, it won't take long for the news to spread around.

Simon leads us to the front office, when we get there Simon leaves and says he'll meet me later; Izzy and Seb talk to different office ladies, the other one is being used by a boy, so I sit down and wait until one of them finishes so I can register. While I am waiting I begin to study the boy in front of me.

He's tall and leanly muscled with golden hair that is slightly over grown so that some of the ends reach the nape of his neck. He's wearing a white T-shirt and black running shorts. It isn't until he turns around that I see what will be in my mind for the rest of the day.

Sure his face is perfect, he looks like a Greek god with blond hair but his eyes are what captures me. I've never seen a colour like it before, almost a brown, yellow. Tawny I think it's called and those eyes sliced straight through me. When he looked at me my breath caught and a cocky smile stretched over his teeth; he'd noticed my reaction.

"Hi, I'm Jace," he said in a voice like velvet.

That snapped me out of it. "Clary," I said coolly and put on my _I-couldn't-care-less _face and flounced past him.

"Nice to meet you… Clary," he said behind me. I didn't look at him. Instead I focused intently on the office lady. She had light brown hair that frizzed and curled around her face. I told her my name and she got me to sign some papers and handed me my schedule.

P1 -Art. Room 304

P2 -English Lit. Room 111

Snack

P3 -Biology. Room 105

P4 -History-Revolutions Room 005

P5 -Advanced Math. Room 111

P6 -Geography. Room 111

Lunch

P7 –Chemistry. Room 121

P8- P.E

I didn't realise I had put Art down. I used to love to draw but now I haven't drawn in years. Dad said it reminded him of my mother and I was never allowed to do it.

I had to hurry to get to Art on time, Izzy and Simon had already left so I was in a hurry and I didn't really know where I was going. _Where the hell was room 304?_

Turning down another corridor I saw that the first room was 046, so not this one. I turned and ran in the other direction and I hit a wall. I swear there hadn't been a wall there before, a warm hard wall. Looking up from where I had fallen I saw the boy from the office, Jace I think his name was. He smiled a bit.

"Lost?" he asked, and helps to pick up my books from where they had scattered. I hate this, this is so embarrassing, why couldn't it be someone else, anyone else I could have bumped into, why _him_. I mean he already caught me staring at him once.

"N-no…" I say trying (and failing) to sound convincing.

"Right…" he smiles, I know he doesn't believe me. "So where are you headed, he picks up my schedule and looks at it, "Art 304?" he asks and I nod, "Are you sure you're not lost?"

"No. Now please hand back my books," I say reaching for them.

"So, you're just walking in the complete wrong direction because?" I stumble and my cheeks heat up, my face probably resembles a tomato. Yay.

"Umm I wanted to have a look around first," is the lame excuse I come up with. "Look can you just tell me where to go?" I ask getting impatient, I want to get out of here before I say something even more stupid.

"I can do one step better than that; I can show you the way. Let me be your Idris High Guide," he says with a flourish. I can't help myself, I smile and laugh and begin following him down the empty halls.

"So I take it you're new to Idris?" he asked casually like he was talking to an old friend.

"Um… sort of, I lived here when I was young and I want to finish off my years here." It sounds convincing, I make my voice confident and get back some of my New York attitude that I have developed over the years. "What about you, this is a town where everyone knows everyone, and I didn't know any Jace's when I was younger so when did you decide to come to Idris?"

"I moved here a few years ago with my grandma, she got a job around here," he says.

"What about your parents?" I ask. His expression clouds over and a darkness covers his features.

"They're dead," he says flatly, devoid of any emotion. I watch him for a moment and don't say anything.

"I didn't mean to pry," I say and he turns his head to look at me. A funny look crosses his face, and then he smiles a bit.

"You're the only person who hasn't said _I'm sorry for your loss _or something like that," he says still studying my face.

"It wasn't my fault and it would be silly to apologize for something I have no control over," it's only after I say it that I realize that it could be taken as rude. "Wait, I didn't mean to be rude or anything," I add quickly on the end and look down at my feet blushing, with my pale skin and red hair blushes show really easily. Jace puts his hand under my jaw and turns my head so I can look him in the eye.

"I didn't think it was rude. I think it was refreshing." He releases my jaw and looks up, "We're here," he says.

I look up startled to see the number 304 on the door, when I turn back to him he is already walking away.

"See you later, Clary," he says without looking back.

"_Bye," _I mouth at his disappearing figure.

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_**So don't forget to review! Updates come quicker if you review ;) they actually do...**_


	5. Chapter 4- Learning the Ropes

**_A/N/: Hey, everyone, so you have all made my day this week. I have literally been jumping around the house raving over how many views and REVIEWS I have gotten. I was going to post this chapter tomorrow but I had to post it today. All because of you guys. and because a lot of the wonderful reviews were anonymous. So I would just like to thank them for they're kind words and you helped me write this chapter. So now I'm done being a sap and if you read this far... well done you. So read. enjoy. review._**

**_Disclaimer... you know who the characters belong to._**

**_and if you've read this far you know who the plot belongs to..._**

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**CHAPTER 4**

Have you ever been so lost in an activity that time doesn't matter anymore minutes or hours could have passed but you're not aware of it? I think this is how you feel when you do something you know you are meant to be doing. This is how I feel when I draw. The allure of a blank white page is overwhelming to a born artist. I'm not aware of anything except me, my easel, my canvas, and the scene I'm creating, the emotions I'm stirring, the life I'm portraying on the page, the never ending possibilities of a blank space.

The assignment was to create 3 drawings in succession displaying one emotion. I chose melancholy, the first scene I created was beautiful (in my mind) yet sad it was of a cliff with a girl in a long white flowing dress sitting at the top she had her face on her knees and in her hand a dying rose, long slightly tangled hair covered most of her face, the point of view was at the top of the cliff and you could see stormy seas in the background and a scattering of tree's around the edge of the clearing when was sitting in. The next scene showed the same girl standing on the edge of the cliff with her head bowed and her hair blowing in an invisible wind. She was delicately plucking each petal off the dying rose and watching them flutter down the side of the cliff, in this image the point of view was from out as sea so you could see the side of the cliff. The last picture and the one I was currently working on was from a birds eye point of view and you could see the girl as she flung herself off the cliff and was frozen mid-air in her decent, her hair fly up behind her and the stormy depth below her. I had just finished the final touches when the bell rang and it was time to pack up.

"This assignment must be completed by Wednesday," Miss Alicante said as we began to pack up. I liked Miss Alicante she was quiet during working time and talkative and happy before and after. As everyone begins to leave I walk up to Miss Elliot.

"Er… Miss Alicante," I hesitate not wanting to sound like a teacher's pet, "I finished." Miss Alicante at first looks surprised then suspicious.

"I didn't want a rushed job Clary," She warns "I'd better have a look" I nod and lead her to my easel. My hand fiddles nervously as she surveys my work. Her breath catches.

"Stunning. Absolutely stunning" She breathes as she gazes upon my work, "This is some of the best artwork I've seen done by a student in years," She looks at me with tears in her eyes then hugs me. At first I don't react mearly shocked that a teacher has hugged me.

"Um, Miss Alicante? I need to-" I say awkwardly before she cuts me off.

"Oh yes of course, you have a class now, here I'll write you a note. We are going to have so much _fun _this year" She squeals as she writes me a note. I can't help but smile at her enthusiasm as I take the note and leave.

"So what were your first classes like?" Izzy asks me during our 15 minute break at snack. "Hey did you get lost? This place is worse than the Labyrinth," She said conversationally, but turned to me curiously when I didn't answer straight away. I looked down at my feet.

"Yeah, but I ran into someone who helped me," I say non-committedly.

"What did this _someone _look like? Let's call him Joe." I smile at her antics.

"Well _Joe _was tall, muscled, golden hair, a cocky smile and tawny eyes," I say still looking down at my feet, my un-polished nails are visible through my sandals.

Izzy stops in the middle of the hall as we make our way to the Lunch room, grabs my arms and hauls me off to the side of the hall. I look at her startled and see her eye's bugging out of her head.

"Is _Joe's _real name actually _Jace?_" She asks.

"Um, maybe?" I say quietly not knowing what her reaction will be.

"Lissa?! What are you doing? What about Jon?!" She whisper yells.

"Um, I don't know should I just stay away from Jace is this unfair to Jon?" I ask worriedly, Jon would rip Jace apart if he tried anything on me. Jon can't know _anything _about Jace.

"_Of course _this is unfair to Jon. But you _should _go for it. I mean don't get me wrong, Jon's great. It's just that you may never have the opportunity to test the waters without him knowing again. And who knows, sparks may fly? Then all you have to do is break it off with Jon… and live like the people in _Mr and Mrs Smith _except there'll only be one assassin." Her enthusiasm is contagious and I can't help but grin with her.

"One question, _how do you even know him?"_ I ask bemused.

"Oh… I have my ways…" She says mysteriously, and I raise an eyebrow incredulously, "and I have SOSE with him." I laugh.

It's the last period .P.E, I Like P.E and I think I may be good at this class because they ran us harder than anything they could through at us here. I can jog up to twenty kilometres before I start feeling it. We had a two to three hour gym session every day. There are no unfit assassins. So when I walk inside the gym with a girl called Maia, who I met earlier, I smirk at the ropes and walls they have set up all over the large halls it looks like we're doing a basic army work out. Probably a round robin.

I go into the change rooms with the rest of the girls, and that's when I realise I have a major problem: I forgot to bring a change of clothes. _Shit._ Turning to Maia, who is getting changed I ask rather awkwardly.

"Do you um, happen to have a change of clothes that I could borrow for today? I ask quietly so that no one else over hears my problem. She looks down at me startled from her towering height. Yeah, I really didn't think this through.

"Yeah… but they might be a bit big on you…" She trails eyeing my petite form.

"I think _everything _would be big on _her_" A tall blonde girl sneers at me, she is surrounded by a group of girls all of which have died blonde hair and look like they are trying to be exactly like her. They all burst into laughter like what she said is the most hilarious things in the world.

Maia scowls "Leave her alone Kaelie" Maia snarls.

"_leave her alone Kaelie_" one of her clones mimic. "I only wanted to _help _the new girl, I thought she could wear this" She says dropping a few scraps of clothing in front of me, I pick it up eyeing the sports bra and short-short running pants. "They're mine, I wanted to be generous. You can show off the boys your scrawny- I mean _petite _figure." She smiles and her friends laugh.

"Thanks" I say sarcastically grabbing the clothing, "I think I will." Kaelie smiles and leaves the change rooms, so that Maia and I are the only ones in the room.

"You don't have to listen to her, I can lend you one of my other tops…. Although it will look like a dress on you." Maia's eyes show sympathy. But I don't need sympathy , I've had enough crap about my size to last a lifetime, and I wouldn't take this shit from an assassin so I am sure as hell not taking it from some bitch that looks as if she was born in a plastic surgeons office.

"Thanks, but no thanks. I'll wear exactly what she gave me," I say with determination, and slip out of my dress.

***  
When I walk out of the change rooms the coach still hasn't arrive. I walk confidently towards the groups of teenagers in the middle of the hall. Maia is at my side not bothering to hide her vicarious smile. A few people turn around to see who is entering, the girls stare enviously and the guys go slack-jawed as they take me it. A smug smile hits my lips at their reactions. One of the clones turns to see what everyone is staring at and she squeals in shock and slaps Kaelie on the shoulder to get her attention.

"OW KRYSTIN! What the f-"her voice fades when she sees me and her jaw almost hits the floor. I guess I should explain and the easiest way to do that is to show what happened after I took my dress off.

_5 minutes earlier…_

... and slipped out of my dress. Maia gapes at me taking in my sleek well-muscled physique.

"YOU HAVE A FUCKING SIX PACK?! WHERE THE HELL DID YOU THOSE ABS? AND THAT BODY? YOU'RE GOING TO GIVE EVERY GUY A FREAKING HEART ATTACK!" She practically screams.

I blush, I have what you called a ballet dancers body. You don't work-out almost every day for eleven years without getting some pretty well defined muscle. I'm not bulging but I do have a six pack and slim dancer's legs. "I used to do a lot of dance and sport…" I say lamely.

"I'll say, Kaelie's going to regret giving you those clothes." Maia says with a smile. I laugh and pull on the bra and shorts.

_Present time (4 minutes later)_

"B-but… you c-can't… how?" Kaelie sputters when she manages to close her mouth.

"Cat got your tongue?" I ask sweetly and pivot around to find a smiling Jace behind me.

"Nice bod, Clar" He says eyeing me.

"See something you like?" I ask with a sudden confidence. _Where did that come from? This morning I'm stuttering and now I'm flirting? _Being half naked and having the entire class ogling at you does wonders for your ego. But that will disappear when I begin to workand exercise I have a one track mind and focus all my energy into the task at hand.

"Lots," He winks just as the coach walks in and shuts us up with one hard blow of the whistle. He quickly goes through the role and starts going through the activities, I know them all but I listen carefully anyway in case he wants something done differently. Some of the class are ignoring what he says and some are just talking to each other when I look around it seems that Jace is the only one as absorbed as I am in what he is saying. I have never been in a class that's not completely focused on the task at home. Back in training if you weren't listening or if you started talking (although I have no idea who would talk back to you) you got punished and in an assassin school, they didn't really care about the law against corporal punishment.

"… Now I'll split you up into pairs to do each activity one of you will time while the other one does the activity in the timed courses and in the course that require help you _will _help your partner, you will be responsible for everything that happens to them and will spot them at all times, especially over the high wall and high bars. If they fall you _will catch _them. I will call out the pairs they are completely random and I don't want any lip about your partners." He begins to call out names seemingly at random, but I suspect he is avoiding putting some people together. Maia is paired up with Jordon who I think I remember from before I left, neither Jace's nor my name has been called yet.

"Wayland you're with Clary Fray," I look around confusedly, _who's Wayland?_ When someone taps, I spin around to see Jace.

"Wayland?" I ask sceptically.  
"Last name," He explains, "So where do you want to start partner?" He says gesturing around the room. I grab a timer and point to the only activity with no one on it. The rope.

There are two ropes one with a bunch of knots tied in it and the other with none. The coach said only experienced rope climbers try that one. At the bottom is a large thick crash matt so if you fall you won't die.

"Ooo… You know there is a reason no one is at that particular station." Jace says eyeing me like he's trying to judge my sanity.

"Aww are you scared?" I coo and start walking towards, "You don't have to do it if you don't want to." I call over my shoulder.

"Scared? No." He laughs, and runs to catch up with me, "Just worried that your stamina won't hold up for all the other activities." He says when he reaches me.

"For your information I have excellent stamina and could beat you at all of these activities in my sleep."

"Look at that board over there," He says pointing to a board on the wall of the hall, on the board are the names of all the students who have won sportsman of the year award. Jaces name is in the last 5 spots, he has won it every year he's been here. "You sure you don't want to change your mind about that statement?"

"Wow," I say impressed and he smiles, "Who'd you have to pay to win that many awards," He scowls at me, but is still smiling.

"You really think you could take me?"

"I think I could trample you"

"You're on," He says and we run to the station.

"Fastest one up and down both?" I ask.

"Okay, I'll go first." He says and I count down.

"Go," Jace runs to the un-knotted one first. Smart choice, you don't want to waste your energy on the easy one first. Holding onto the rope with both hands he expertly twists is foot into it looping it round to give him some leverage he continues in this fashion, never stopping or slowing down until he reaches the top of the gym, there are two bells; one for each rope. He rings one and mauvers himself out of his shirt still being at the top. I can't help it, I stare. _No one _can be that perfect. It's not possible. He looks better than _David _in fact he makes every hot man that every lived look like a toad. _That _is how hot he is, it is not fair for one man to be that good looking, he hold too much power like the power to make every girl within a 20km radius to die of a heart attack merely by taking his shirt off. And when he smiles…. Wait he's smiling at me, _Oh shit_; I'm still staring.

"See something you like?" He calls out my earlier words. I blush profusely and look at the ground. Fuck no, I am not going back to my earlier, blush and be embarrassed self.

Looking back up at him I call out "You know steroids are bad for you." He laughs and wraps his t-shirt around his hands so he can easily slide down without rope burn. When his feet hit the floor he walks over to the other one confidently thinking he doesn't need to try because there is no way I'll beat his time. Huh, I'll teach him a lesson. He scales the next rope easily and I stop the timer as soon as his feet touch the ground.

7:03

It reads. My personal best is 5 minutes, I can win this easy. Jace comes over barely sweating and reads the time. He smirks.

"You know the best time a girl at this school ever got was 10:58," He says smiling confidently.

I laugh, "Well then the girls at this school suck." I say "Are you ready to be beaten Mr Wayland?" I smile.

"Unlikely Miss Fray, Ready. Set…. Go!" He yells and I run towards the un-knotted rope mimicking his actions I begin to scale the rope. I ¾ of the way up and am vaguely aware of a slight burn in my bi-septs, I ignore it and continue climbing when I ring the first bell. I stall a little. I don't exactly have a shirt and I can't exactly slide the rope in my cleavage. Thinking fast I wrap my thighs around holding them out straight so that the short material of my shorts is the only thing touching the rope. I let go of my hands. The falls lasts approximately 3 seconds I try to stop myself with my hands but I'm moving too fast the rope burns my hands, just as I'm about to hit the floor strong arms catch me. I look up at Jace's worried face.

"That was close," He breathes his breath tickling my nose and face. He even has nice smelling breath; peppermint. My favourite. I look at him dazedly.

"That has never happened," I say feeling slightly embarrassed but quickly lose that train of thought as I stare at him, ok his lips. I can't help but notice how nice it is in his arms. Warm and comfy, I seem to fit perfectly.

"Can you stand? You might be in shock."

"Of course I can stan-" I am cut off because the second my feet hit the floor my legs feel like jelly and I forward. Fortunately I fall straight into Jace who catches me, unfortunately my hands hit his shoulders and I have rope burn all over them. Major rope burn.

"Oww" I scream and yank my hands back. I start to fall backwards; luckily Jace catches me, again, and scoops me into his arms. "You seem to keep catching me today" I laugh nervously.

"Someone has to," He says around a smile, his smile drops when he sees my red blistering hands. I wait to see the disgust but he just looks sympathetic. "Ouch, we should get you to see a nurse," He says wincing. Just as the coach runs over. He hears the end of what Jace says.

"Good idea Wayland, you right to take her?" Coach asks looking serious, "You know that the 2nd rope is for experienced climbers only." I resist the urge to roll my eyes at his patronising tone.

"Yes coach, I've done it before. It was just that time…" I trail off. He basically ignores me.

"Yeah, yeah. Just get to the nurse." Then he turns and goes back to his chair at the front of the hall so he can watch everyone.

Jace carries me to the nurses office which is in a room off the main office. I stare at wall and the cheerful pictures of girls and puppy dogs trying not to focus on the nurse rubbing creams and ointments into my palms. Jace stayed for moral support and wraps a comforting arm around my shoulder squeezing when I flinch and wince. Once they're bandaged I thank the nurse and go out into the main office. Jace is about to leave when I stop him.

"Could you, er, be my scribe since I can't write?" I ask him gesturing to the form I need to fill in. He nods and comes back to me.

"Full name?" he asks smiling his pen poised to write.

"Very funny, Clarissa Fray." I say rolling my eyes.

"Well then Very Funny, what an unusual name. Date of birth?" He asks again completely serious.

"August 14th 1994, and that's Very Funny with a capital 'F'" I say.

He looks up at me laughing and I laugh back. The pain in my hands is fading, in fact the whole world is fading looking into his tawny eyes. He looks like an angel in the way the light hits his hair. My angel.

I'm not aware of it but I seem to drift closer.

"Miss Fray, we called your mother. She says she'll be here very soon." The office lady says. I don't hear her properly. I don't hear anything as I look into Jace's eyes. Jace seems to drift closer too. Our lips are so close my eyes flutter and our lips are about to touch when it finally comprehends what the lady says.

"Wait, did you say you called my _mother?"_ I say turning my head away from Jace just as the front door swings open.

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**Soooo yeah... Worth the wait. Just think of it like this Reviews are better than almost kissing Jace ;)**


	6. Chapter 5- Jocelyn

**_A/N/: So what can I say? writers block, for like a week and a half :/ every time I sat down to write I just froze. I know this chapter _****should****_ have been up a week ago but... yeah I PROMISE I will be better! Just writers block's a bitch, any suggestions on how to get rid of it would be greatly appreciated. So what else can I say? well here's another thing a big THANK-YOU to all of my WONDERFUL readers/reviewers/whatever else just thought there should be another slash. Your kind reviews inspire me to write. This is officially the longest start of a story I have ever written and it's up to you guys to propel me to finish it. (My self discipline sucks) and 2000 READS! I know this doesn't sound like mush to a lot of you but this is the most amount I've ever had. And every morning I get to wake up to a nice review since most of them arrive at like 4:30am since most of my readers are American. So yeah this has gone on too long... so screw the disclaimer you've seen it the last couple chapters you don't need it again. You are smart people you get the idea. bye. read. enjoy. review ;)_**

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**CHAPTER 5**

She stormed into the small space. Auburn hair flying everywhere. My mother's hair. My hair. My mother was always slender, but now she just looked too thin. Way too thin. Her emerald green eyes crackled with rage as they scanned the room.

"Where's the impostor?" She growled. He voice which used to be so full of life now just sounded tired.

" I've had enough of this, just because I offer an award and suddenly she appears everywhere," She still hasn't looked at me. I feel Jace at my side; he looks bewildered.

"M-miss Fray, I had no idea" The office lady stumbles under her glare. "But she said she was Clary Fray, and we assumed…" She trails off. Her head starts to turn in the direction that I'm sitting in. Does it sound mad to say that I was hoping I could take care of this entire assignment without confronting my mother? When her eye's reach me she looks mad, but when I meet her gaze with my own, a look crosses her face; somewhere between amazement and shock.

"Cl-clary?" She gasps and then collapses. Using my lightning fast reflexes I run and catch her before she hit the ground. It's another second before everyone else reacts, when they do I don't take notice because I looked down. My mother she looked the same in some ways but it looked as if she had aged 30 years in the last 7. Her cheeks were shallow and her cheekbones cut severely across her face. It struck me for the second time what happened. I left my mum. My mum, the women who loved and cared for me for the first eleven years of my life for a man that no one would call _nice_ exactly.

Jace eventually picks her up out of my arms and lays her down across some of the chairs. Some ladies come over to me and bandage my hands. I stay kneeling on the floor unmoving from where I was holding her face; I stare down at my arms. The arms of a killer, the scared, bandaged hands, the thin skilled fingers, able to master so many weapons but not able to comfort anyone. I get up and begin walking to the door, no one notices me, thinking it best to let my mum think it was a dream when her voice stops me.

"Clary?" Her voice comes out it a dazed whisper I freeze one step from the door and look back at her. The crowd of people around her have split so she can see me.

"Mum." My voice cracks, I look at the door before running to my mum's side and kneeling in front of her.

"Is it really you?" She asks her hand shakily caressing the side of my face as if wondering if I'm really there.

"Yeah it's me," I whisper wishing everyone else would leave, Jace must catch my look because he ushers all the office ladies away giving us a little privacy.

"But… How?" She sounds a bit like a child and I'm comforting her.

"I came back, and I'm going to be staying a while," I give her a half smile.

"Ok," She nods, "Just don't leave." Then she hugs me first lightly then tightly in a way that tells me I couldn't get away even if I wanted to. But I never want to leave. My dad hugged me but never like _this._ This hug was pure joy and relief and seven years of pent up _love._ My eye's filled with tears that threatened to over flow as she hugged me. I don't know how long we stayed like that but eventually The bell rang for the end of the day and we broke apart.

"Umm, I have to go," Jace says backing out of the room, I hadn't realised he'd stayed.

"Yeah see you tomorrow," I croak and wrap an arm around my mum's shoulder, "Thank-you, for, um looking after me today, I could have, err injured myself…" God this was awkward, in all the sticky situations I've been in I've never had anyone rescue me before, yeah I'm not so good on the thanking.

He seemed to realise this and smiled "No problem," His cocky grin was back, "But just so you know: I won." Then he turned on his heel and walked out of the room. Leaving me gaping furiously at his back. _Rematch_ I vowed silently in my head.

When I looked at my mum she seemed to have recovered from our earlier epiphany and was seriously eyeing my clothes, or lack thereof.

"Um, yeah… I didn't have any clothes for P.E" I say sheepishly and avert my gaze.

"Uh huh," She says unconvinced. There is an awkward silence and I look around the room, I know that we can't avoid the topic forever, well I know that the future is unavoidable and I open my mouth to start the sad excuse for a story. _You think they would have thought of something… I don't know believable?_ But she beats me to it.

"What about we talk at home?" She says finally and I let out a relieved sigh.

"I think that's a great idea."

The car ride home is silent. Each of us caught up in our thoughts. By all means mine should be on how to make my story more believable. But I'm too busy pondering the word _home. _I don't know why it makes me feel so weird. For the past seven years I have lived in a room, in a dorm. I never called it _home._ Home requires feeling, _home _requires love. That is something the institute never had. It is run by hate and all things bad. Sure people love killing, but those people are psychopaths, I was training to be an assassin, heck I _am_ an assassin and I don't even _love _killing. I think it is impossible to love something that requires so much hate. People love power. People (assassin's in particular) love the power that taking a life gives a person and knowing that they get to decide who lives and dies. I don't need power. I need to draw, I love to draw, I love my mum, I respect my father.

The house hasn't changed, not really. Not in appearance, just in the feel. The actual part of the house that we lived in was on the second floor, the first was taken up by the art shop that my mum owned. I used to love unpacking the stock and helping in the store when I was little. My mum taught me to paint on the second floor balcony watching the sun set over the mountains surrounding Idris. The house feels empty, some of the furniture has been moved around and my the dining room table has missing persons flying strewn over it. I recognise the girl in the picture; it's me. I look a lot younger and the photo was taken on my eleventh birthday and I'm wearing a party hat.

"I guess I can get rid of these," Jocelyn says as she staring blankly at the table, "What about I make some tea, then we can talk." She says and hurries off to the kitchen leaving me in the lounge room I sit in the organised mess of canvas's and bold coloured furniture. I stare at the bright orange couch and sigh sinking down into its plush, well-worn softness.

When Jocelyn brings the tea in I set it down on the coffee table to let it cool. "So," she says, "I guess the first thing to ask would be; What happened?"

I go on to explain my sad story about running away trying to find my father and ending up lost then Isabelle and her mother took me in and I was too scared to go home so I stayed with them and I became emancipated at sixteen and changed my name and dyed my hair so no one would recognise me. She seemed to believe me, and had tears running down her cheeks when I finished.

We talk a bit more before I decide that I have to get back to where I'm staying with Izzy and Seb. She asks if I'll come over tomorrow and I say yes then I depart.

I decide to jog home, still being in my P.E outfit, I realise I left my stuff at the school. The jog is roughly 10km and I run it easily. While running I can just not think about anything, I barely take in my surroundings and almost run past the hotel. I continue up to my apartment and collapse on my bed. Ignoring Izzy and Seb I just relax, for the first time in a long time I just relax.

After about five minutes of relaxing I rock myself off the bad and try to cheer myself up. It almost works. I answer the constant pounding on my door to a red faced Izzy.

"What the hell?" She exclaims and pushes past me into the small lounge room/kitchen, collapsing in the chair she looks at me, her perfectly made up eyes brimming with curiosity, "So you have to tell me, what happened today?"

I sit on the closest chair's arm rest and give a somewhat sketchy rundown of the day's events. I seemed to have met everyone in one day, one long lousy day. After Izzy has asked what she deems a suitable amount of questions (approximately 3000) she leaves.

Letting out an audible sigh I collapse into the chair on which armrest I was sitting on.

"_Ring, Ring. Why don't you give me a call!" _My phone blares at an obscenely loud volume. Groaning I reach over to the coffee table and look at the caller display, which is just a number on my crappy brick phone. I could have gotten something better but I am technology intolerant and I always seem to break it in some way, usually by throwing the damned phone at a wall… So everyone pitched in and got me an old brick phone that is practically indestructible. I recognise the number almost immediately.

_Jonathon._ I really can't talk to him now, not after today, not after Jace. I let the call go to voice mail and just stare at the ceiling, the cracked white surface is strangely comforting, and it's nice to have something that's not absolutely pristine, I find that rustic is welcoming, homely. I decide that there is only one thing to do, I grab the book we're reading in English Lit; _Wuthering Heights_. I've never read it but I've heard about and the love triangles and Cathy and Heathcliff. It seems interesting enough. I also grab the bubble bath and walk to the bathroom, letting the hot water run and fill the tub relaxes my muscles just watching it. I don't realise just how tense I've been until I slip into the steamy depth, I put the book down determined to get back to it later and just let the water swirl around the knots in my back, relaxing and releasing them. After about ten minutes of just lying there, I pick up _Wuthering Heights_ and begin to read until the water turns cold.

When I wake up the next morning I realise that it's Saturday. One of the good things about starting school on a Friday is that the weekend is the next day. I look suspiciously at the light streaming through the crack in the curtains and roll over in the large bed so I can reach my phone.

9:30am.

I rub my eyes and stare at the numbers. That can't be right, I don't _sleep in._ I shake my head. _Izzy's going to think I died_ I think to myself and roll over again unfortunately the wrong way because the I fall flat of the bed I stare at the roof as all the sheets follow me off the bed and land on top on me.

Grumbling I peal myself out of the sheets. I look down at my worn trackies and tank top, I've half a mind to walk around wearing this for the rest of the day but I have to have a shower. I drag myself into the bathroom. I seem to be spending a lot of time in the bathroom, really I need to get out more, after 20 minutes of hot watered heaven I get out of the shower and decide to air dry my hair, since I have the day off. Huh my first day off ever.

I make myself fruit salad from the fully stocked fridge, I wonder who stocked it? Whoever did did a good job. I don't think I'll be going hungry anytime soon I walk around the clean kitchen and look out the wide windows that line one side of the lounge room. In the morning light I can see I soccer field down the road there are some people playing around two of them look suspiciously like Seb and Izzy, I decide to check it out. I pull on some clean shorts and a _Blink-182 _T-shirt, it's loose and comfortable, I dig round the floor of my closet until I find my Nikes then run down the stairs and across the street, I forget what my hair must look like. A big tangled half wet curled mess around my head I imagine Izzy almost dies of laughter when she sees me keeling over to hold her stomach. I smooth my hair self-consciously and the other people in the field turn our way curiously. I recognise a few of them, Simon, Maia, Jordan and oh god; Jace. I gulp and look at the ground blushing and fiercely begin to smooth out my hair, it's no use; my hair takes intensive one on one time with a brush before it stops resembling a tumble weed.

"What's up crazy carrots?" Jace says in his usual teasing manner. Most of the group have the decency not to laugh, well at least hide their smiles. Except for Sebastian who openly laughs and hi-fives him saying he has to remember that one. Simon bites his lip and shrugs.

"Well at least that hasn't changed," He half smiles and I shoot him a sarcastic look that shuts him up.

"Well I'm pretty sure you aren't all down here to laugh at my hair. So what _are _you doing?" I ask agitated.

"Well," Jace begins "we _were _playing soccer but making fun of you does have a certain appeal," His eye's crackle with amusement.

"And, what are _you _doing here?" I ask Izzy and Seb, they look guiltily at the ground.

"Well we were up early and you were dead to the world, so we were bored and saw these guys playing soccer and asked if we could join. But we could really use you!" Izzy says in her usual almost-too-fast-to-understand way.

"Fine," I smile "Who else is on our team," I ask, praying that Jace isn't.

"Maia, Jordan, Seb, Simon and Raphael." She says pointing to each person, I don't recognise that last person; he looks vaguely Spanish he smiles and nods at me. I look towards Jace; he seems to have a permanent cocky grin on his face, in fact the only time that I ever saw him without one was when we were talking yesterday and just after he caught me. Those moments when he lets his guard down is when my heart stops, not that that smile doesn't cause some serious twanging and other interesting things lower down.

"You're on," I say with my own cocky smile, the one that I use when I'm fighting newbie fighters, the smile that says _I'm going to win, I don't even know why you're trying_. Jace raises his eyebrows but the smile still lingers on his lips.

My team and I set up into our positions, we're playing half field and my team is defending first. We run and kick and laugh and I have the best time I've had in ages. It's almost like one of those movie scenes when the characters are running and laughing and smiling in slow motion except there are not sweating and they aren't playing in the early morning humidity but this is better because the movies don't have Jace

Jace is the best sport I've ever seen, he's really good but still passes the ball and he is always smiling everything is going perfect until it reaches about noon and everyone Simon says he has to go to work; he has the afternoon shift at the café this causes a chain reaction and soon Jace and I are the only ones in the park.

"You know it just occurred to me, that I never said thank-you for yesterday," I say looking at him, the sun is now directly overhead and his hair glows like a halo around his head.

"You don't need to apologise that's what spotters are for," He says modestly.

"No, not just that. I mean how you were when I saw my mum, thank-you. I really mean it" I tell him earnestly. His eye's meet mine, tawny to green

"I heard a lot of things about you…" He tails off, not sure how to continue. I decide to help him.

"Like that I ran away? Was abducted by aliens? Went to be an under-age prostitute?" He laughs at my persiflage.

"Yeah something like that, is it true?" He looks away at the mountains.

"Um, yeah it is. It's a long story, basically I was an eleven year old and I wanted to find my dad and ended up getting taken in by Izzy's family, yeah don't ask. It's just… It's just really fucked up." I sigh and stare at my feet.

"Hey," Jace puts a finger under my chin and tilts it towards him, "everyone has their problems, my parents are dead. Everyone has something that's fucked up in their lives, I'm not one to judge" his expression is one of rare seriousness, my heart swells. I should feel this way; it's not fair to Jon.

But Jon never understood me the way Jace does and I've only known Jace for a day and I can see that he doesn't empathise, he _knows_. Something Jon never could understand was why I would go pensive every now and then. But Jace is the same and at this moment I am having trouble thinking about anything other than the tawny colour of Jace's eye's those eye's seem to get closer or maybe it's because I'm leaning closer and because he's leaning closer. So close. I can feel his warm breath against my lips as his head ducks down and my face tilts even further up. I push up on my toes we get closer still. Until we are millimetres apart, I am still staring into his eyes, except now they've blurred into a tawny abyss. So when faced with what any girl's dream would be; I do what any heterosexual female would do: I dive into that abyss having no idea where I'll land but knowing that I'm dying for the journey. Our lips meet.


	7. Chapter 6- A Kiss

_**A/N/: **_**So I figure there are two things I need to do. The first is to apologise for the agonisingly slow update. I'm sorry I have a bunch of lame excuses that I could use but you probably don't want to read about my life's problems. You want to read about Clary and Jace's. The second thing is say thank-you for all the amazing reviews and just to say one of my excuse is that have you ever been so caught up in a book/series that you couldn't do anything else but read? well that's been me especially since Finale came out (last book in the Hush, Hush series by Becca Fitzpatrick, one of my favourite series) So yeah.**

**Disclaimer etc.**

**enjoy :) review and let me know what you think. By the way this chapter is nothing but fluff, but it's Clace fluff so it's okay :)**

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**CHAPTER 6**

When Jon kisses me it's hard and passionate and it's like a raging fire, it's rough and scary. Jace is anything but.

Jace's is like growing warmth, starting in my lips which slowly seeps through my veins, wrapping around bones, incapacitating me. It's slow and safe and gentle, it's magical. He _knows _how to kiss, he knows how to make the other a party feel it, and I felt it.

You better believe I felt it.

Tingles radiated my body from my lips to my feet, _making_ my hand reach up and wrap itself in his hair; which is impossibly soft and silky. My other hand cups his cheek and feels along the rough stubble, _he obviously hasn't shaved today _I think to myself.

Jace wraps a strong arm around my waist pulling me closer to him, my body seems to fit to his. _He must play a lot of soccer, _I think _that or go to the gym every day._ Jace is hard not a soft bit a fat anywhere on his chiselled body. But he's muscled in the lean leopard-y way not like those ripped, bulging with muscles kind of guys. My hand trails down to play with the hair at the back of his neck.

His other hand threads through my hair and I lean into the kiss. I don't know how long we stay like that but eventually we pull away and just stare at each other. Both of our gazes are unreadable there are too many emotions to find a solid grasp on one.

"That was…" I breathe staring at the ground our foreheads still pressed together.

"Yeah," he agrees, we are both breathing heavily.

"I should,"

"Go?" he his eyes flick to mine, "Yeah that's probably a good idea."

We both wait for me to actually move but my body is rooted to this position, finally I manage to move and somehow walk away. I don't see anything in front of me as I walk, my mind still hazy from the kiss. There was a part of me that wanted to go running back to him and kiss him like there was no tomorrow, then there was the rational part of my brain that was trying to remind the irrational part that I _have _ a boyfriend. There's another part of me though quite a large part in my heart that hurts every step I take father away.

"Clary, wait," Jace's voice reaches me and my heart soars I turn back around wild tendrils of red flowing around me, "Do you um, want to hang out today?" He asks awkwardly, I never thought I would see Jace awkward.

I tired incredibly hard not to let the excitement bubble out of my mouth at the thought of spending the day (possibly kissing) with him. "Yeah," I smile a genuine smile, "I'd like that."

"But I should change first" I say gesturing at my faintly sweaty shirt and shorts, "and my hair is… well you can probably see for yourself" I say waving my hand as the tumble weed that is probably my hair.

He laughs, "I like the hair, it's _endearing_," He says walking over to me, "And the outfit is great, I love Blink."

"fine but if everyone laughs at me, and then you for being seen with me. Just know that it's your fault," I say not very seriously.

He laughs again, "If anyone see's you they will think '_who is that amazingly hot person... And who is the girl next to him?'"_ Now it's my turn to laugh and punch him lightly in the stomach. He catches my hand and holds it there for a second then lets it go, but not before I feel the electric shock touching him caused me, I can tell by his face that he felt it too.

"So this is a pretty small town. Where are we going to go, since I'm not going to be able to change hopefully somewhere where no one from our school is," I say grasping hold of his hand and tugging him along.

"Well let's just walk and see where our feet take us," he entwines his fingers through mine and we wonder across the field.

We walk and talk and laugh and for a while I don't think I just let myself be. Our feet end up taking us to a strip of thrift stores with lots of people selling some rather bizarre things. We decide to look through every store one after another. There are a few people mostly older parents who look at us with disapproving expressions as we doing something that causes us to erupt into loud laughter then trying to contain ourselves for the sake of the other customers. I don't miss the sales clerks wistful gaze and Jace and I have a great time.

When we reach to about the 7th shop, I look down at my watch started to see that it's already 2pm, I barely notice it before but I was ravenous.

"Do you want to have lunch?" I ask Jace and tell him the time.

"Great idea, I'm starving and I know just the place," He looks excited about where he's going and I begin to wonder where he's taking me. We round a few blocks before reaching a peculiar looking building, The store front is a deep blue and glittery with silver calligraphy scrawled perfectly across the glass; '_Magnus's Moonlight Café'_

My eye's wonder questioningly to Jace, he smiles at my incredulous expression, "Trust me," he says.

Taking my hand he drags me into the dark café, it's actually really cool. There is almost a magical feel to it, there's the standard table chairs counter set up. In the corner there's a mysterious looking door that says '_Magic Room'_ above the doorway.

"Um, Jace what is this place?" I ask unconsciously moving closer to his side, the people in this place look a bit shady. Although they would have reason to be afraid of me, then me of them.

"This is the best café in town…. Don't tell Simon I said that," he winks then the barrister at the counter caught his eye, "Alec!" he shouts and the dark haired boy looks up and smiles his eyes wonder to me then back to Jace.

"Hey Jace, who's this?" he asks nodding to me from behind what I think is a coffee machine.

"This is Clary, Clary this is my good friend Alec, he graduated from Idris high last year." I smile at Alec and he nods hello to me.

"Did I hear… " A voice says coming out of the '_Magic Room' _The voice belongs to a young man, he's half Asian with spiky black glittery hair and cat eye contacts, his choice of fashion is… bold. At least that's one way to describe it, he's wearing tight leather pants with a white silk T-shirt and a red sparkly vest over the top. He grins when he sees us revealing perfect white teeth, "Jace, what a pleasant surprise, and who is this?" His cat like eye glint mischievously.

"Clary," I interjected before Jace could say anything. He held out his hand for me to shake, he hand pale hands with long fingers and pointed nails. I carefully slide my small hand into his and his hand instantly turns mine over so he can look at my palm. My eyes find Jace and shoot him a panicky glance at Jace, but he has an amused smile on his lips and nods his head encouragingly.

"Hmmm," The cat like man says mulling over my palm and tracing a few lines. "I'm Magnus by the way he says and lets go of my hand, "Alex will take your order and I'll talk to you later," he smiles and sweeps from the room.

My eyes follow his graceful movements before wandering curiously back to Jace, "Wow," Is all I can say before Alec interrupts asking for our orders.

Jace orders something that sounds chocolaty and I order my usual coffee, skinny latte, no sugar, no flavour. Jace bursts out laughing at my choice and then looks at me.

"You can't be serious," He says when he is able to speak, "That has got to be the _most _boring coffee I have ever heard of."

I open my mouth with a retort when Jace interrupts telling Alec that I will have a spicy chai latte, full fat. "What?" I splutter, I can't remember eating anything that wasn't incredibly healthy or at least low fat since I was a child.

Jace drags me to a sparkly table and we sit down. He tells me about what teachers to avoid and I tell him what teachers I have, he makes a few comments. When he starts asking about my life in New York I give vague answers and I try to turn the conversation to him.

"So where did you used to live?" I ask him sipping my coffee (which tastes delicious by the way… not that I'd tell Jace that).

He hesitates before answering, "Um, California," He says at last. I know the signs of lying and either answering straight away or too late a tell-tale signs. I decide not to pull him up on it, everyone has secrets. God knows I have more than my fair share.

The conversation continues, talking about everything and nothing. When we finish our meals, Jace pays.

"I'll pay you back," I say as he hands over the money I left the house this morning without one, like an idiot.

Jace seems to find this funny as he laughs before saying "don't be silly, the man _always _pays" I wanted to do the feminist thing, but something about the smile he flashed me did something to my heart, it fluttered.

"f-fine" I stutter trying hard to not show what his smile does to me. After he pays and leaves a large tip, I smile; I hate people who leave stingy tips. We walk out into the glowing light of the afternoon.

"What time is it?" I ask squinting against the sudden brightness.

"Four o'clock, there's still plenty of time." He says after looking at his wrist watch. We begin to walk down the street, we're towards the edge of town I can see the trees at the end of the road, that's basically all there is around here; Trees.

Jace's hand finds mine as we meander along. With a pang I think of Jon, he doesn't deserve this. But then again he's not _here, _and this is just going to be a little fling. I know that… except when the sun hits Jace's hair just right and it shines like a halo around his head. I've spent my whole life living, no, _training_ to be in the shadows, to hunt others in the shadows with me, when even just walking along the street with Jace brings me into the light.

Thinking of Jon kills the mood a little for me and I think Jace notices because he squeezes my hand and tugs me off the path into the shrubs on the side of the road. I shoot him a questioning glance but follow watching my feet on the uneven terrain.

We walk for about fifteen minutes into the woods, I can hear running water close by as we Jace and I push through the ferns.

"Just round here," Jace says and uses a knife tucked into his belt to cut his way through the branches, he must have been planning to come here earlier I decide as the only explanation as why he would have a knife on him. I don't take out the knife concealed in my underwear but I can't help but admire his knife. It's not one you would see around here, I push it to the back of my mind as I follow him.

I don't have to duck under a lot of branches because I'm so short so when I walk under the final branch what I see takes my breath away. I understand where the running water comes from now; tucked into the dense bush is a small waterfall, crystal clear water falls from the slightly moss covered rocks into what looks like quite a deep pool of water at the bottom. The water is so clean you can see the grey pebbles that line the pool it's shallower farther out and leads into a tiny clearing just big enough for Jace and I to stretch out on. The grass is dotted with tiny wild flowers and is cropped short, it looks lush and green.

"It's beautiful," I breathe in wonder, "how did you find this place?" I ask cautiously stepping forward we are on top on the waterfall, a slight spray drifts of the rushing water, instantly cooling any sweat I worked up on the hike to here.

Jace looks down embarrassed he seems oddly vulnerable here, "I err, When I first moved here, I got angry a lot," He looks at me sheepishly, "I didn't want to be move. I used to hike a lot to try and calm down and I stumbled across this place one day," He looks up at me, his eyes look worried as if he's scared about something. I don't know what he's worried about I want to reassure him, except I've never been good at that thought of thing so I change the subject (next best option).

"So how do we get down?" I ask looking for a way to climb to the bottom of the falls, Jace loses his shyness and smiles a smile that sends shivers down my spine. A smile that matches the twinkle in his eyes. Warily I back away and he turns predatory, for every step I take back he takes one forward. The wind rushes beneath my feet and looking down I can see the water under me one more step and I'm over the edge.

"You wouldn't," I say my voice trembling a little, his smiles widens.

"wanna bet?" He asks and lunges for me, I could have moved out of the way but some weird strange part of me wanted him to catch me. I scream as the air breaks around me as Jace and I tumble into the water. I was right the water is very deep, we don't touch the bottom of the pool. The water is cool and refreshing after the warm day I've had, it washes this morning sweat of me, the only problem is that I'm am soaking wet and don't have a towel. When we resurface apart from each other, I glare at him.

"Y-you are s-so dead," I say shivering in the air above the water. Jace grins a cocky smile and that about does me. I shove the water in front of me so it splashes up hitting him in the face. He coughs and splutters on some of the water he accidently swallowed. I laugh when he glares at me, squealing joyfully I start to swim away but he has an advantage being larger than me he catches up with my instantly. Wrapping an arm around my body he drags me against him. Even in the water cool water, where ever Jace touches me my skin heats up.

I spin around in his arms just before he dives under the water, taking me with him. I choke and hit him under the water but he smiles and then resurfaces. When I finish choking I narrow my eyes, I open my mouth but he stops me from saying anything by covering it with his own. My mind is instantly in sensory over load as a million different feelings rush through me. Our first kiss was a shock and new this one, although still a shock, was different. This one was fun, where the first one had been passionate this was light, it had a humorous feel to it, when we break apart we are smiling at each other. Swimming over to the edge of the pool, we drag ourselves on to the grass and lay there, we laugh, kiss and have whispered conversations about absolutely nothing at all and it's nice. We don't notice when the sky turns dark, the night is warm and I lie against Jace, my eye's drifting shut as I listen to his steady heartbeat.


	8. Chapter 7- The Infiltration

_**A/N/: I am so so so so (etc) sorry, I haven't updated in ages! but this is a long chapter (9 pages on word) so I hope that makes up for it. I have to thank my new beta XxXLostLoveGetsFoundXxX, I might finally get a chapter with no mistakes up (wouldn't that be wonderful) So I hope you enjoy this chapter and don't forget to review!**_

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**CHAPTER 7**

_"Let's start with a warm up," The instructor smiles at me, it's not a nice smile, "Twelve laps." His sadistic smile broadens when he eyes my disbelieving expression. Astonishingly the other kids don't even bat an eyelash they take off as a group at a light jog.  
The instructor looks at me, "You better get going," he says, "just because you're the boss's daughter and it's your first day doesn't mean you get special treatment. Get moving, NOW!" He yells the last word and I feel spit land on my face, I cringe back and run after the group of kids.  
After two laps my lungs are burning. And he wants us to do ten more of these?  
"Morgenstern, hurry up you're lagging behind!" Bellows the instructor from the other side of the athletics track. I pick up my pace when a group of boys come up from behind me.  
"Morgenstern? Are you the Boss's daughter?" The boy is tall and his friends crowd around me, "scrawny little thing, aren't you?" he remarks and his friends laugh, he's already lapped me twice and he's not even panting.  
I don't reply, something about my disregard must insult him because he places a hand on my back and with one hard shove I'm sent tumbling forward. My knees and palms start to sting from where I lie on the ground. The boy steps on my back as he runs past pressing me to the ground again. When I look up everyone is laughing. I mean EVERYONE is laughing. My eyes burn and tears begin to run down my face._

I wake up with damp cheeks pressed against my pillow. I can see the sun rising through my curtains and I roll onto my back staring at the ceiling. I don't know what you call a dream when it's a memory. That was the first and last time I cried for seven years. Looking around, I realise I'm in my bed still fully clothed. It takes me a moment to realise the day before.  
Absently I run a finger along my lips, and remember the feel of his lips on mine. A warm feeling builds in my chest and I can't help the smile that comes to my lips as I think of him. Cautiously I look around the room; everything seems to be in place. When I look at the open space of bed next to me; a note stands out it's written on a piece of thick creamy card with a rose, the scratchy writing looked ridiculous amongst the elegant paper and rose. I hiccup a little laugh at the effect and it's just so Jace.  
Clary,  
Did anyone ever tell you that you sleep like the dead? Seriously, its been proved impossible for you to wake up. You're lucky I'm such a ripped guy because a lesser man might have struggled to carry you home. Now stop blushing, (I was blushing) I'll pretend I didn't hear your snoring.  
I gasped, "I do not snore you bastard" I whispered under my breath, but my I was still smiling.  
Anyway, I locked the door behind me when I left and have a look on the stove, your fridge is outstanding. All you have in is fruit salad and water? Anyway I made you a proper breakfast, but don't worry I didn't hang around all night. You have a fully stocked kitchen, surprising since it seems you never cook, (your stove is unused) anyway I'm running out of space and I have things to do places to see.  
-JW  
I could basically see the arrogance coming off the page, picking up the rose I held it to my nose, like those girls in the movie do, and smelt the sweet floral fragrance. Sighing happily I looked around the room and peered at the time. It was 5:30am. I sighed not so happily; it looked like my nightmare and memory had awoken me early.  
Padding into the en suit I turned the hot water on high and let it fully wake me up, not bothering to clean my hair I simply rinsed my body off. I pulled out a big white fluffy towel and wrapped it around me. Curiously I wandered into the Kitchen.  
Smells and aromas assaulted me as soon as I stepped foot into the large open kitchen and family room. Even more curious; I walked to the stove there was an omelette pan with a sticky note attached.  
Bon appetite  
Opening the pan I saw where all the scents were coming from. It wasn't just an omelette; it had everything in it all swirled and covered in perfectly cooked golden egg. I noticed a thermos next to the stove and moved to that and read the sticky note on that.  
"I figured you would get addicted," this one read, gingerly I removed the cap from the hot container and smelled the contents, the scent of spicy chai latte consumed me and I sighed gratefully. Did this guy think of everything? Noticing another note under where the coffee sat I picked it up.  
Look in the fridge…  
I moved towards the fridge, gasping when I opened it; inside there were platters of pre-prepared food, looking around I saw there were more post it notes listing the dish and the ingredients and when they would go off. There was one last note on the door:  
That is the last thing. What can I say I like to cook. Now I expect you to eat ALL of this food because I will test you on which ones you liked the most. You are too skinny, you need something other than muscle on that sexy body of yours ;) Now I don't want any thanks (although I suspect you're mad) but you might be grateful. Frankly you didn't strike me as the cooking type but you never know… Anyway enjoy proper nutrition.  
-Chef Jace  
I shut the fridge in a daze, he was right I was mad… but not very. No one had ever cooked for me. This would have taken a lot of work and he cleaned up everything. Deciding to at least enjoy a different meal I take my omelette, coffee,and newspaper and head over to sit down on my medium sized table by the widow.  
Morning light streamed in through the open blinds, giving the whole kitchen a serene and calm look. The meal was delicious, Jace can cook. I eat breakfast slowly savouring the flavour; eventually I finished the omelette but still had my coffee. Grasping the thermos I move over onto the couch. After getting bored of the newspaper and all of its depressing topics, I decide to grab my sketch book, reaching for it on the coffee table I pull it onto my lap and start absently doodling.  
Half an hour later the phone rings; Jolting at the loud noise, I peer down at my doodling. It has turned into a full scale drawing of a girl crying after having fallen over, a faceless angel boy helping her up.  
Quickly shoving my drawing to the side I race to pick up the phone inside. It's beside my bed and I drop my towel in the effort to get there. Not glancing at the caller ID I pick up the phone.  
"Hello?" My voice is rushed and has a happy swing to it; it doesn't sound at all like the usual serious manner in which I answer the phone.  
"Lissa?" the familiar voice cause my stomach to drop.

"Hey Jon," I say uneasily trying not to let my voice change too much. Guilt gnaws at my stomach, making me feel sick when I think about last night and yesterday. Oh God what have I done, this isn't fair to Jon, or to Jace. Jace has no idea and Jon trusts me, he would never cheat on me and I can't tell him. That would be disastrous, he would kill him. Literally.

"Clary, hey. How are you? I'm sorry tried calling you yesterday, but you didn't answer. I was worried, but Izzy and Sebastian said you were fine, just tired, they said you saw your mom. Are you ok?" Jon did sound worried, which only made me feel worse, I mean he may be a professional killer but he is genuinely concerned for me.

"Jon I'm fine. It's really good to hear your voice," my voice chokes a little but I cover it letting him think it's about my mom, "Seeing my mom was intense. I'm sorry I missed your call I was asleep and I know I'm not allowed to call anyone unless it's an emergency. Now I know that you wouldn't call me at- 6:30 in the morning if it wasn't something important, so what's up?"

"Talking to you is important…" Jon mutters, "But you're right. You, Izzy and Seb are infiltrating the Herondale facility today; we've located it to be about a half an hour out of town toward the forest. It's underground so it may be hard to get in and out. We've faxed the blueprints to Izzy with options to get in and out, we've also marked where you will have to go and available routes. Clary, you're in charge of this one, you call the shots and decide the routes. We're counting on you for this. We don't want you to take anything just search photo graph and find evidence. You are to be ghosts no one can know you were there. Understood?" His voice has taken on a formal business tone used only when talking about serious business.

"Yes, Agent Branwell," I use the formal confirmation of orders to show that I'm taking this role seriously.

"Very good, Agent Morgenstern," He replies in an equally formal and stiff tone. "Oh, and Clary?" he says is a softer voice, "Please come back alive… and successful. But mostly alive. Please." My heart swells, what he's saying is completely against everything we've ever been taught.

"I'll try," I whisper fighting the ache in my heart.

"Good, bye Clary" He says gently.

"Bye Jon," I say gently my eyes filling with tears. The phone disconnects and I let my head fall forward as tears run down my face, flowing freely as I sob the guilt out.

What is wrong with me? I think angrily to myself after a few minutes of crying. Furious with my weakness ,I wipe roughly at my face ridding me of my tear tracks. Walking to the closet I select the tight fitting black outfit I wear on the field. It's tough and surprisingly flexible worth thousands of dollars. Pockets sewn all over the outfit provide space for the multitude of weapons and gadgets I keep on the person at all times. Opening the secret panel at the base of my closet I then place my thumb on a scanner that allows me access to my weapons cabinet. Selecting an assortment of guns, projectiles, and finally my extensive knife collection (by far they are my favorite weapons). Carefully I select my knives. At last I gingerly pick up my Chris Reeve Pacific 6" S35VN Blade. My favourite weapon of all time. It given to me as a gift after completing the course in knives with flying colours. Eventually surpassing my teachers and surprising my fellow classmates, I got moved to the advanced class after showing a natural talent for blades. In fact advanced blades was where I first met Jon.

Shaking myself out of the memory I quickly strap the blade to its special holster, on my thigh within easy reach of my hand, so that if I need it immediately I can retrieve it. The blade itself is too sharp to be in a normal holster the one specially strapped to my thing is lined with metal and sharpens the blade as I pull it in and out.

Once everything is done I pull on some loose fitting pants and a hoodie, an outfit someone might wear to go down to the shop to get milk in the morning. When I knock on the door across the hall Izzy and Seb are dressed similarly to me. Seb wordlessly hands me a fat folder containing our assignment and any piece of information that might be necessary. Inside the folder there are color coded bound paper, red being the important information, blue the useful information and so on.

Scanning through the red folder and quickly flipping through the blue I immediately see what routes, theoretically, would work the best. The blue folder further narrows those ones and the other help make a definite choice. What I'm doing is text book, this is what we are trained to be able to do. This is my most important test, my first assignment and if things end badly; my last.

Seb drives. It takes almost half an hour to get to where we need to go. We head in the direction Jace and I had walked yesterday. It makes me realise just how far it was for him to have carried me home. My cheeks flush at the thought of him carrying me sound asleep through the street. I stare wistfully off in the direction of the secret oasis when Izzy catches my eye. I don't know what she sees in my expression; but I don't want to answer the questions brimming in her large dark eyes. Especially not with Jon's best friend in the car.

The car ride is completely silent, all of us lost in our own thoughts; Seb I can guess is thinking about his first assignment as is I assume Izzy is. But for some reason something else bugs me; how in the world was Jace strong enough to carry me all the way home, I mean even Jon would struggle to carry me, what is a twenty minute car ride.

By the time we reach where we park the car, my mind is still trying to figure out thinks that don't add up. Mentally shoving the unanswered questions in some far corner of my mind, I gather my thoughts so that they are primarily focussed on the task.

"It's a ten minute walk to the where the building starts," I say trying my hardest to sound firm and sure, "I say we enter from the southern entrance," I point to a small entry halfway round the other side of where we need to be, Izzy and Seb give me questioning glances but and I explain; "they'll expect us or anyone trying to see the good information to enter from here or here, this point of entry which we will be taking is a weak spot in their defence. The morning security round finishes in ten minutes, we will have time to get in and have time to get to the right tunnel, here," I explain pointing to one of the highlighted routes, I go on to explain how we will get out and the various plan B's. When I finish Izzy and Seb look at me in awe.

"You're a freaking genius!" Izzy exclaims, "You thought of absolutely everything," she continues. I blush under her praise, even Seb smiles at me. Relieved I guess that he doesn't have to obey a plan that he thinks is flawed.

"Everybody ready?" I ask, but don't give them time to reply, instead I start walking toward the building in the distance. It's barely visible through the thick growth and trees.

Moving gracefully through the under growth, I coax my hair into a tight bun and slip a full face mask over my head, completely obscuring my face. We move through the forest swiftly, emerging ourselves in the green of the ferns and leaving no evidence of our tracks behind us. We are silent as we duck under branches and avoid any loud leaf litter, the general dampness of the canopy aids our stealth, I think a send a quick thank-you to the open space above the tree's. I've never really believed in a specific god. But I do believe there is something there, just not one that can be defined by a religion.

It's me who notices the entrance, and quickly grab Izzy before she walks into view of the camera. She looks sheepish, when I nod my head towards the very subtle entrance almost completely cover by undergrowth, it looks as if no one has used this entrance in a long time.

Carefully I move to behind the camera and pull a small device from one of the many pockets on my belt. I scrutinise the lens from behind the small device before adjusting the device. Faster than a blink I fasten the device over the lens. I wait five seconds before moving in front of the camera. The device will show the area around in what it saw in the previous five seconds, ensuring the camera only see's what it shows on replay. Meaning that we can't be seen. This would be problematic on a busier entrance as security would notice if they were looking at the same five seconds. However this entrance is less than used and I seriously doubted that anyone would closely watch this entrance.

I gesture for Seb to get to work on the door; he and Jon had always had something of an affinity for locks and doors, often using devices and picks to unlock various areas of the Institute, for example: the rec pool, thus causing half of the year to have detention. Except detention at the Institute, is not like normal punishments, it involves being pummelled by upperclassmen and being the schools personal slaves, going on many coffee runs and getting extra homework for the class time you miss running around for other people, to do in time that you don't have and then getting further detention for not completing everything, it stops when a person manages to get on top of it. The record for the shortest detention time is three weeks, the longest: two years. It doesn't matter what the infraction was; everyone gets the same punishment. You could be five minutes late for class or you could deliberately break someone's leg.

After fiddling for a few minutes while Izzy and I watch our surroundings Seb manages to open the door. It swings inwards and Seb quickly grabs the door before it can hit the wall on the inside, I should have warned them that the door opens slightly downwards. Seb shoots me an annoyed look after narrowly saving us from potentially dangerous noise. I flick him an apologetic look in return, he rolls his eyes and shrugs.

I know I'm forgiven and stride forward to make my way to the metal door. Inside is a dark set of concrete stairs. I've studied the security and know that we're safe until we reach the bottom. I move inside the door cautiously and silently make my way down the stairs. I don't hear Izzy and Seb fall in behind me; they're too good for that. But I know they're there, I can sense their presence behind me.

The stairs continue for a while and it gradually gets darker and darker. I am completely fine with the dark; I've always welcomed it, in the dark I felt alone. I guess some people would hate that feeling but I was pretty introverted; perfectly content to sit curled up on the couch drawing then to venture to some smoky location with loud thumping music and sweating bodies.

When we reach the bottom of the stairs, I make a motion for Izzy and Seb to stop. Our eyes have adjusted to the dark so they should be able to see the gesture. The silent movement behind me stops and I take a gel from one of the various pockets on my belt and slip on protective gloves over my already gloved hands I also insert special soles for my shoes. Spreading the gel carefully over one hand and tightened the wrist brace. Leaning back so that my weight was on my heels and my toes were exposed I spread the gel on the toes of my shoes too. Then leapt.

My hand connected solidly with the wall above the door, and stuck. The gel worked; it was designed so that it would stick to the wall, thus allowing me to avoid standing on the pressure pad that was the bottom step.

Feeling totally ninja-ry, I stuck one leg on either side of the door and began work on the lock with my unstuck hand. I'm no Sebastian or Jon, but I still have some skills when it comes to doors. One has to when studying to be an assassin. People don't always just unlock the door, can you imagine how that conversation would go?

Knock, knock.

"Who's there?"

"Um, I'm a hired assassin that's being paid quite a lot of money to kill you. Can you let me in, because my pick locking skills aren't quite that good?"

For some reason I couldn't see that going very well. I smile to myself as the door clicks open. Carefully I peel my shoes and hand from the door and swing monkey style. In side there is a small room, the colour scheme seems to be grey. There are three doors they all look the same, unsurprisingly the doors looked as though they haven't been opened in a long time, but I'm not interested in the doors, my gaze is trained on the vent. Suddenly I realise a problem: the vent isn't big. In fact its tiny only someone small would fit, someone being me, only me.

When I gesture to the air vent, Izzy and Seb instantly realize the problem. Motioning them to look at me I pull out my map and show them two alternate routes, they can still gather information but they can't get to the main office, only I can. I sign to them what routes to take and underline some other information for them to collect. They will go through one of the doors and I will go through the vent.

We part ways but not before Seb gives me a boost into the vent. They take the map with them. So after one quick study I'm on my own.

The vent is dark, much darker than the stairs, for moments there is only pitch blackness, so much so that you can't see the difference between closing your eyes and opening. A feeling of claustrophobia clothes in around my throat. I fit in the vent but only just, I have to lie flat on my stomach using my arms to propel me along the dusk coated surface.

Every twenty or so metres there's a window that shows the room outside through slotted gaps. But those gaps provided almost no light and soon enough the darkness swallowed me again as I crawled through. It was hard to be silent against the echoing metal, hard but not impossible, the real problem was the dust; it left me with the urge to sneeze. I managed to control it every time but it was still hard.

It was only when I was nearing the point where I had to change vents that I found that I was in trouble. I heard voices.

"Hey man, you coming to lunch?" someone asked from outside the vent. I couldn't see his face from where I froze in the vent.

"Yeah in a second, when Kyle gets here," a vaguely familiar voice returned.

Shit, Shit, shit. I though furiously. No you stupid twit, GO TO LUNCH, go to lunch, go to lunch. I kept mentally repeating those words hoping my Vulcan mind tricks would work and he would leave so I could break into his boss's office.

"Come on mate, it's basically impossible to break in here, Kyle should be here soon enough. Just come to lunch," The other voice replied.

Listen to the boy I thought in my head. It seemed ridiculous, me hiding in the vents and them talking about how no one could break in.

"I don't know…" The familiar voice said uncertainly, come on, LEAVE already I thought to the voice, where had I heard that voice before?

"Please, come on we have to hear about Herondale's date," that seemed to persuade the guy a bit more.

"Herondale went on a date?" he seemed disbelieving, "Okay fine I'm coming,"

YES! I cried internally yes,yes,yes-

"I'm just going to turn on the aircon, it's boiling in here."

No.

No, no, no, no, no, no. FUCK. NO. This was unbelievable! How could he, and he was about to leave. It's not hot, just imagine you're in the Antarctic, a little sweat is good for you!

"Yeah good idea, Kyle will definitely appreciate it." The other voice said.

NO! I almost screamed out loud, you were my favourite, how dare you turn on me now! But it was too late he turned on the aircon, in a building like this the air con was run through vents as in the vents I was in. It also took two beeps for the giant turbine two feet from where I lie frozen to start turning. And as soon as that happened I got a face full of dust and other things.

Have you ever stood in front of a classroom ready to give a speech and suddenly need to go to the toilet, not just need to go. But feel as though you would burst if you didn't, like if you didn't you would wet your pants in front of the entire class? Well that is what it felt like when the fan started turning, only I didn't need to go to the toilet; I needed to sneeze. Badly.

The unpleasant tickling stayed at the back of my nose, threatening at any moment to come out. I couldn't more for fear of an echo and I could very well sneeze. I felt like I was in a comic when the hero is hiding and the villain is walking under the tree he's hiding in and suddenly the hero has to sneeze. Except I guess from the moral perspective I am the villain so maybe I do deserve royal bad timing and general unluckiness but I hardly think it's fair.

I heard the boys open a door except they lingered chatting in the door. I almost screamed, at least Kyle or whoever he was wasn't here yet. My nose itched and I tried holding my breath to keep it in, only the tickle behind my nose began to get stronger so I let it out slowly. Breathing deeply I tried to stabilise the sneeze.

Finally, finally, they left. Quietly I pushed out the air vent and leapt onto the table beneath me. Fitting the vent back I turned and quickly moved across the room to another vent, this one was part of a different system. This one lead to the Imogen Herondale's private office.

The sneeze seemed to pass as I moved quickly through the second set of vents; this area of offices was basically deserted. Sooner than I what I was mentally prepared for was I lying on top on Imogen's office.

Slipping from the vent I land with a muted hush on the hard carpet; the room is large, filled with average looking office furniture. I start with the filing cabinet; there is a lock of course, although not something that would bother me. I slide out my lock picking set and take the thinnest of the metal strips sliding it into the small lock, adding another one I jiggle it round a bit before hearing a stratifying click. The drawers slide open easily as I put my kit away, smiling to myself at my "ninja skills" as Jon would put it.

There is something strangely satisfying about breaking the rules; it's like absolute power, and also a nervous excitement at the prospect of getting caught out. Guilt usually comes later; for normal people that is. We have always been told that we break the rules by doing what we do, not break exactly. We burn the rules, as well as the entire library then dance on the smouldering ashes.

Scanning through the folders I picked out a few, then moved to the desk and allow myself to sink into the plush black office chair, just as I begin to touch the computer I hear a noise.

Freezing I notice a red light on the desk flashing; Silent alarm.

"Fuck," I swear under my breath. I know it's not me, because why the hell would you show the criminal that an alarm is going off.

I grab my phone and sent a quick text to Izzy.

U set the fucking silent alarm off. Get out, now. Meet by the car.

-C

I hear a commotion outside the office I'm in, "fuck," I swear grabbing the files, I don't have time to photograph them anymore, I'll just have to take them with me.  
Shoving the files up into the air vent I prepare for my great escape when the door slams open. I make a rookie mistake; I freeze. It takes him a second to realise what exactly is actually going on. But that second could have been used in my favour, instead I froze.  
I mentally kick myself before swinging into action. The man is masked, like me. He's tall, but not gigantic. Then again everyone is tall compared to me; he's looks to be around 5'11. We circle each other I search for a weakness in his movements, there is something disconcertingly familiar about him though, something I can't place.  
I try not to look too much at the place above his head, the place where I put the files. I need them; If I leave without them then this mission was a complete failure. I imagine the talk we're going to get when we get out of here.  
I focus on the "when" of that statement. I know we will get out of here; I would die before I was captured and I learnt how to withhold information during torture the hard way. The Institute was never a nice place.  
He strikes out first, coming at me with a sweeping kick. I dodge jumping cleanly over his leg and coming out behind him. He spins, and I simultaneously un sheave my knife. His eyes whip from the knife to me and he takes out his own blade, it's longer than an average one, with an intricate design, it shine silver in the light.  
I can't help it; I let out a low whistle. I spin my own blade affectionately, letting it know that she's still my favourite. Yes, my knife is a she. I can't help it, she's too graceful to be a man.  
The guy raises an eyebrow and lets out a quick grin. I can't help but smile a little back. At least the guy I'm going to kill has a little humour, or maybe that's a bad thing… I prefer to kill scumbags.  
This time we move at the same time, quickly engaging in a graceful dance of fast movements and dodging limbs. Whispered conversations with my father stirred in the back of my mind, years of training whipped through my mind as we fought.  
We danced a lethal tango, swirling and jumping at all the right times, it was fun almost. No fun is the wrong word. It was refreshing, so much so that I was smiling and with a split second glance so was he. As we fought I noticed we were both tiring and that takes some work. Another thing I noticed is that one of us would have to win and soon, and with a grim realisation I realised that person would have to be me. Which is a shame because I was really enjoying fighting with this masked man.  
With a forced new energy I amped up the attack, he noticed. Our dance became faster paced and rushed, mistakes were made. A slice to the shoulder for me and a cut to his side, I'm used to fighting injured so it was more of a sting then a hold-my-shoulder-falling-to-the-ground-begging-and-crying type of cut.  
I don't know how (well I do, a kick, a block, a jump, an elbow and a type of headlock) but I ended up with my arm pressing his neck against the wall and my knife against his throat. His own knife had fallen on the ground.  
I didn't particularly want to kill him. But I knew I'd have to, "There is always a consequence" my father used to say and the consequence of losing a fight is severe. It's not my fault, I don't make the rules; I just follow them.  
We're both breathing hard, I change the grip on my knife and glance up at my victims face. The mask covers everything except his mouth and eyes, I can't shake the feeling that I've seen him before; the shape of his lips and his hard, lean frame. It was then that I made my biggest mistake: I looked into his eyes.  
It wasn't mercy that was the problem with looking into the eyes of my quarry, it was their colour.  
Tawny.


	9. Chapter 8- Realisations

**_A/N/: I'm sorry I haven't updated sooner, I don't really have much to say actually (shocker right?) actually, anyone else excited about them making Divergent into a movie, except Alex Pettyfer as four...? wut. So I hope you enjoy. I know the last one finished with a bit of a cliffhanger so I don't really think this one does._**

**_Disclaimer: No matter how much I claim Jace is mine (so is Will) I guess in the eyes of the law he's not ._. Anyway I'm pretty sure you all KNOW I don't own the Mortal Instruments so this is just stating the (depressing) obvious._**

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_Fuck it. I am not in denial. It's just not him. _I thought as I stalked my way through the corridors. Something about my expression must have told people not to come near me because as I walked people practically dove out of the way; those walking towards me met my glare and turned away.  
I was mad. I fucking let him get away_._ I completely fucked up and I didn't even have the balls to tell my superiors about. I can't imagine what he must have been thinking, seconds away from his death and his killer suddenly _drops her knife, _and sprints out the door. I don't know what I was thinking.  
The car ride back from the mission had been silent; I don't think anyone even breathed. When we got back we had a video conference with the board of the Institute, Izzy and Seb got their arses handed to them. But they won't be pulled from the mission, it's too late for that; they've already made an impression in the school and it could cause problems if they left.  
I secretly breathed a sigh of relief when they denied Jon's request to join the mission, and attend school with us. That would make things way too complicated, and things are already complicated enough as it is.  
Those eyes were branded into my brain, impossible to remove. Every time I closed my eyes I would see those tawny coloured orbs looking down at me in surprise. My brain couldn't help but make the comparison to a certain other pair of- _No. _  
I cut myself off that train of thought, shoving myself deeper into denial and refusing to even _think_ about the possibility. I spent most of the night tossing and turning, not even bothering to try and cover up the circles under my eyes. I can't even remember if I showered or not, I pulled my hair back in a sloppy ponytail and pulled myself into a pair of jeans and the first t-shirt I laid hands on.  
It happened to be a black shirt with a smiley face on it, the caption said "I hate you." The Irony was not lost on me, except I couldn't find the will to smile. It was such an appropriate shirt for today, projecting exactly what I wanted to say… to everyone.  
"Clary?" a timid voice asked, breaking me out of my revere. My head whips around to stare up at Maia.  
"Yes?" I say curtly.  
"Ok, look," she says harshly, her voice building confidence, "this is madness, I don't know what happened to piss you off so much, but do not pull this crap on me and take it out on the rest of the school."  
I blink at Maia; impressed by her courage. No one has spoken to me like that in years. Suddenly I smile; it feels like the first time in decades. I can tell that Maia is not one to put up with anyone's bullshit and I like that.  
"You're right," I say, "I just had a really shit day yesterday and I can't stop thinking about it."  
'You… want to talk about it?" Maia asks awkwardly, I can tell that she doesn't usually do the whole talking about emotions stuff.  
"No, not really," I watch, amused by her obvious relief, "So…" I say in an effort to change the subject, "Where do you guys normally go for lunch?"  
She grins, "C'mon I'll introduce you to the gang," she says grabbing my arm and pulling me through the halls.  
The cafeteria is crowded and full of students, we walk straight through them, ignoring the glares we get as we shove our way through.  
"The best way," Maia informs me, "To move through the caff is by not looking anyone in the eye and shoving through, the polite way is not an option otherwise you'll never get where you want to go." I can see her point, the school has squashed far too many people into one lunch break, it's madness and makes the air conditioning almost void; on account of the amount of people.  
When we reach the food stations I scan for anything that looks remotely edible. I pick an apple, it appears to be the only thing that won't give me food poisoning.  
After paying we continue to shove our way through the crowd until we reach a small booth like table in the corner of the room.  
I recognise Simon sitting squashed in the middle laughing with two other people. The table is silent when we arrive. Then Simon seems to jolt awake.  
"Clary! Hi!" he all but yells, a little too enthusiastically.  
"_Clary?" _says the boy next to him, he looks very familiar. I can't quite place where I've seen him before. With a sinking feeling I suddenly know why he seems so familiar.  
"Hey Jordan," I say awkwardly, it appears that I pissed God off at some point or another –probably my lack of regard for the ten commandments- and he wants to punish me by forcing me to confront all my old primary school friends.  
"As in Clary _Fray?_ As in _you're back?"_ he says astonished, I prepare to defend myself when he turns to Simon and punches him in the shoulder, "and you _knew_ and didn't _tell me?"_ he punches him in the shoulder again.  
Simon, being the dorky skinny, band tee and glasses wearing geek that he is, promptly completely over reacts to the punches, causing the tension to lessen. Maia slides in next to Jordan and I don't miss the hand he slides around her. Soon enough it's like I never met, I am introduced to the others sitting round the table. Max, who is apparently Alec's younger brother and Raphael who's actually pretty funny, and would be funnier if he stopped hitting on me. Then there's Jessie, who won't tell me her full name and Charlotte, "Lottie" for short.  
They're a funny bunch and I spent most of the lunch watching them with a sort of amused expression on my face. It's so weird to see my old friends bantering on like they always used to. It wasn't until now that I realised how much I missed being able to be apart of this. I always used to watch the students who went to the local high schools in New York and couldn't help but envy their carelessness, their complete ignorance to the world around them.  
I can't help but wonder what the reaction would be if these guys found out that a trained assassin was sitting at the table with them, quietly nibbling an apple. They can never know I realise, it would ruin them. They have to be kept in the dark, it's a nicer place there. Normal people (as in civilians) don't even realise they're in the dark, they've grown so accustomed to it, that the light would blind them.  
When I notice Izzy and Seb looking around the caff I wave them over. They approach nervously; unsure of the people I'm sitting with. The boys all seem kind of hypnotised when they see Izzy, I can't blame them; girls that beautiful shouldn't be allowed near other people's boyfriends.  
Maia wraps a possessive arm around Jordan's waist and glares. Izzy, used to be treated this way by girls, immediately introduces Seb and emphasises the part about him being her _boyfriend_, the guys look slightly disappointed by this and Maia's glare lessened. I watched, amused by the whole thing. The new-person tension wore off after a little bit of chatter and once again the table seemed to erupt into meaningless conversation.  
I made a few remarks, but mostly observed the way they interacted with each other. It made me think of what my life would have been like if I hadn't been kidnapped all those years ago. Would I be with Jace? Sitting at this table, with these people and not even realise that this is unusual. I would still believe my dad is dead and would be living with my mum on top of the art store.  
The bell rings signalling the end of lunch. Apparently today is going to be different, there's a special guest for P.E and instead of having Chem, we have double sport.  
I barely say anything as Maia and I make our way to the gym. This time I remember to bring a change of clothes, slipping into leggings and a long loose fitting T-shirt.  
"Come on Clary," Maia says and prepares to walk out into the hall. I don't move, scared that walking out that door means walking into Jace and that means seeing his eyes. I know that if I see them again, I'll know exactly if it was him or not. That means I can't be in denial. That means that'll I'll have to kill him.  
"In a minute," I mumble and sit on the bench with my head in my hands.  
"Ok, what is it? Did something happen between you and Jace? I heard you two were together for most of Saturday, and today you are avoiding him like the plague," She sits down next to me and waits figure out how to answer.  
"You noticed?" I finally manage to say, and turn my head in my hands to look at her. Her expression is sarcastic.  
"You really think I wouldn't? So what is it?" She asks the last part gently.  
"It's just… It's complicated," I take a deep breath, "I _really _like him, and…" I pause.  
"_and..?_" she encourages.  
"Well he kissed me," I say in a rush, I can't tell her the whole truth. But I can tell her some of it I decide, "and, I really, _really _liked it. Except, I really, _really _shouldn't."  
"Why shouldn't you?" she asks bewildered; I guess I'm not making much sense.  
"Because I have a boyfriend," I mumble. I stare hard at my shoes not wanting to see her expression. Eventually curiosity gets the better of me and I glance at her to see her reaction.  
Her eyes are wide and her mouth is open in a small surprised 'o'. Then her mouth thins into a hard line, "Clary, you can't play him like this," she tells me, "it's not fair."  
I look at her and wish that my only problem was that I am cheating on my boyfriend.  
"I know," I say, "It's just… we have a complicated relationship. We've been together for years, he's my first and only boyfriend," I pause, trying to figure out what I'm going to say next, "It's just in all the four years we've been dating, I've never felt this way about him. I thought I knew what love was… But then when I look at Jace, why does my heart race? Why, when he's in the room is he the only one I can look at?" I groan and throw my head back against the wall.  
"One date." I say, "One amazing, wonderful, _normal _date and I'm already falling harder for him than I ever fell for Jon… I'm not even sure I fell for Jon, it just was sort of expected," I sigh, pretending that this was my only problem.  
Maia looks stunned, "Is what you said true? Are you falling for him?" I sigh closing my eyes and leaning my head back against the wall, slowly I nod.  
"Ok. Then it may be hard, but you have to tell this Jon guy, it's just not fair to both of them if you don't," Maia's voice is firm, and I know she's right, and if I were a normal person, that is exactly what I would do. Except, I'm not a normal person; I'm an assassin, and I'm ninety-nine per cent sure that Jace works for another (enemy) organisation.  
"I will," I say and jump up from the seat, "let's get out there," I start walking towards the door and Maia follows, "Oh, and Maia?" I say before we open the doors.  
"Yeah?"  
"Thank-you" I say, meaning it. She smiles in return and walks through the doors.

We are late when we enter the gym. I look at the ground and sit down avoiding eye contact with anyone. The special guest is a martial arts expert, he is actually pretty good, I think as I watch him demonstrate some basic defence tactics.

I pay far more attention than necessary -since I already know all the moves anyway- so I don't have to focus on anything else.

"I'm going to be putting you into groups of girls and boys," the instructor says and relief flows through, I can feel Jace's eyes burning into my back, but I refuse to look behind me.

"But first, does anyone here do a type of martial arts?" Maia nudges me and I throw her an annoyed glance, but raise my hand anyway.

He looks at me, "What type?" he asks me.  
"Karate, Kung Fu and Taekwondo, highest belt in all of them," I tell him, only naming a few of the martial arts I do. I don't bother to be discreet, we'll see anyway. I can't fake the way I fight, too many years of training has been drilled into me to stuff up my technique.  
He looks impressed, 'Great, there's an uneven number of girls and boys, so do you think you'll be able to take one of the boys?" I nod and a sinking feeling appears in my stomach, I try to think positively and try to think that 'boys' doesn't necessarily mean 'Jace.'  
"So everyone else partner up and go through those moves that I showed you, and- I'm sorry what's your name?" He asks me.  
"Clary," I inform him as everyone begins to get up and find their friends.  
"Clary," He says, "you will be with Jace, he also learns…" he continues to talk, but I don't hear anything, all positive thoughts fly out of my body. _What did I do in a past life to deserve this kind of torture now?! _My mind screams and I begin to question if God actually exists.  
"…Oh, here he is now," he gestures behind me and begins to walk away. I squeeze my eyes shut, turn around and reluctantly open them.  
Jace's gaze meets mine, my heart flutters… then dies. This confirms it. I was right; Jace is the one I was fighting yesterday. My heart splinters, I wonder why I ever even entertained the thought that we could ever possibly work. This relationship can only end one way, and that way is one I don't want to think about.  
Jace is cautious, he doesn't say anything and we just stare at each other. He can tell something is wrong, his eyes are troubled.  
We walk quietly to the back corner of the hall, off the crash mats and face each other. Neither of us have spoken. We stretch a bit in silence until I can't take it anymore; I act like nothing is wrong.  
"Thanks for the, ah, food," I say, my voice is strained and I realise my acting skills need work.  
"Yeah, it was no problem. So, uh, do you want to get started," he says, and stops stretching.  
"Sure, um, I'll attack first?" I say and we move into an attack stance. My fists obstruct my view of his face as we both crouch.  
I move to do the simple technique when he surprises me by throwing a punch at my head. Instincts take over and I automatically block the punch with hand and move in with my forearm to his throat.  
"What the-" I begin to say when he attacks again, this time pinning me to the wall, I stare at him confused.  
"Aren't we meant to do the-" I begin when he cuts me off, a grim look in his eyes.  
"I know who you are," he says in a low voice. It takes me a moment for the words to actually register, when it does it hits me like a tonne of bricks. _He knows, How can he possibly know? _  
I break out of his old, flinging him away from me, and stare at him as we circle each other, "H-how?" I say when a thought floats into my head, and my stomach drops, "my knife…" I whisper and he nods.  
I was cocky, I realise, I was way too confident. I dropped my weapon. My uncleaned, _fingerprinted _weapon.  
I look around and catch a glimpse of Maia fighting with a girl I don't know the name of and Jordan taunting her with a smile on his face, she's laughing. When I look back at Jace, he's attacking me.  
We move in a flurry of movements, neither of us landing strong hits, eventually we pause, both of us panting, I have Jace pinned to the .  
"One question," he spits as we stare at eachother, "Did you know the whole time?" I don't get a chance to answer before he pushes me off and we begin to fight again. He goes for the knees and I don't jump in time, my back hits the floor, hard. Luckily you can't hear the noise above the loud music playing through the speakers and the laughing and yelling teenagers.  
"You know, you are the best actor I've ever seen," he says , that pisses me off, so does the hard glint to his eyes.  
"I didn't fake anything," I say and kick out from the ground, he falls onto the ground beside me, "and I didn't know who you were until yesterday," I jump up from the ground and stare down at him.  
"Bullshit," he hisses and gets up.  
"It's true," I say and land a kick to his side, he grabs hold of my leg and tugs me closer.  
"Fine then, when did you find out. Before or after you tried to kill me?" he says our breath comes in pants as we stare at each other.  
"Why do you think I dropped my knife?" I ask. He doesn't change the position and I don't move.  
"How did you know it was me?" He asks.  
"Your eyes," I say, "You're the only person I ever met with tawny coloured eyes," I elaborate when he doesn't say anything.  
"Why didn't you kill me?" he asks, "it was unprofessional not to."  
"Why do you think?" I ask, "I couldn't _kill _you. Not when-" I break off, unable to continue.  
"Not when what?" he demands, his tawny coloured eyes intense.  
"Not when… not when if I do this," I put my hands on the sides of his face and crush his lips to mine. Sparks shoot around my body and every part of me becomes aware of where he touches me, another part of me is aware of the fact that he is kissing me back.  
"I feel like this," I whisper and put one of his hands over my frantically beating heart, his eyes meet mine and slowly he takes my hand and puts it over his own heart. It's beating hard and fast, and I realise _in time to mine._  
We look at each other, so many questions in each other's eyes. I know he feels it.  
"Did you tell anyone?" he asks quietly.  
"Of course not," I whisper back a little insulted, then a something cold grips my heart, "what about you, did you tell anyone?" I ask frantically scanning his face.  
"I couldn't, I just… couldn't," he says.  
"I know what you mean," I say resting my forehead against his, "we shouldn't feel like this," I breathe, stating the obvious.  
"I know… let's get out of here," he says, letting go of my leg and grabbing my hand.  
We slip through the door of the hall, not bothering to tell the teacher that we're leaving.  
We walk in silence for a while, just holding hands, we walk straight off of school grounds and down the road to an empty playground.  
I sit down on the swing and remember all the times I would sit in this very same swing and yell at my mum to push me higher. The swing is old now, it creaks as I slowly sway myself back and forth. Jace leans against a tree and faces me, his eyes watch me and I stare down at my black converse.  
"Tell me everything," he says and I look at him.  
"Where do you want me to start," I ask with a dry laugh, prepared to tell him everything, no questions asked.  
"How about from the beginning?" he says.

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**So... tell me what you think, I legitimately breathe feedback (truth) and so please supply me with oxygen and stop me from making bad jokes :)**


	10. Chapter 9- Confessions

**_A/N/: So you can read this and find out why I haven't updated in AGES or you can just go and read the chapter. So let's recap the last 5 weeks (this is a rant just saying) Week 1: Starts work on chapter 9, realises that it's not working, scraps three pages. Trys again, realises I'm such a romantic that the characters don't react right to the situation AT ALL. Week 2: WRITERS BLOCK PLAIN AND SIMPLE. Week 3, school camp. Hears song on the radio and thinks THAT IS THE PERFECT SONG FOR THE CHAPTER. Immediately becomes obsessed with song. Writes beginning of chapter... realises it doesn't work (too eager to incorporate song somehow). Week 4: Essay takes up most of the week with planning and what not. finally writes three quarters of chapter 9 (here's where we get to the good part) Ok so in the middle of a very deep conversation with my friend my laptop decides to reboot and install updates, me being the impatient person I am ignores the sign that says DO NOT TURN OFF OR UNPLUG COMPUTER and turns it off thinking it'll update later... BIG MISTAKE. turns out I caused a "fatal error" and I couldn;t use my computer all week and it couldn't repair itself and then finally after attempting to restore it several times I have to reconfigure it and I lose EVERYTHING. EVERYTHING I TELL YOU. I lost all of my stories EVERYTHING. I almost cried. So I had to copy and paste Lethal from the internet and save it back into Word and then RE-WRITE chapter 9 for fifth time and this started yesterday as I am now on holidays and FINALLY finished chapter. _**

**_So thanks for all the wonderful reviews, I feel like such a mean person because I keep meaning to reply but I never get around to it. And thanks to one review from a guest, it really made me feel happy it was sent a few days ago. It only annoys me when guests review because I CAN'T reply but whatever thank you anyway. tell me what you think this chapters all fluffy romance anyway_**

**_Disclaimer: I don't (sadly) own The mortal Instruments, as you already know, Cassandra Clare won't give me the rights no matter how hard I beg. And I don't own the songs used in this chapter either. So I just own the story line and yeah._**

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**_Songs:_**

**_Iris - The Goo Goo Dolls_**

**_Here's to the Night -Eve 6_**

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**CHAPTER 9.**

As a rule, silence is an assassin's best friend. We work in it, breath it and learn to revel in it. All through my training I learnt how to do things silently, with no one noticing, no one knowing and therefore: No one caring.

This was fine until now. Now I hate the silence, I _hate _it. I feel ready to scream, but I won't. I'm too ashamed. He asked for the truth, I told him everything. _Everything_. I'm starting to wonder if he'll ever speak again.

He was silent through the entire process and now the silence has remained. I stare down at my converse as if they are the most interesting thing I have ever laid eyes on.

"_You should've know this would be his reaction," _whispered a voice in my head, I stared even more intently at my shoes analysing the marks on the white parts. "_You're a monster… no one could ever love you." _ I try to reject the thought, but it stays nagging at me. Tearing at my mind until I can't take it; tears leak from my eyes. I can't wipe them without him noticing so I let my hair down, the wind blows it across my face blocking the traitorous tears.

Maybe it's something about Idris, I wonder why they even put me on this mission. Other kids might go to Germany, Australia, and France. But I get the hardest mission; I get the mission where my emotions can betray me. I guess Valentine thought he had me completely converted. Hell _I _thought I was completely converted. But it takes one emotion to rip me from the docks of that world; yet the only problem is: I didn't get attached to a new one, so now I float and drift and touch shores before being pulled violently away.

The tears are small but steady, I don't make a sound; I don't want him to feel sorry for me.

"Clary?" he sounds worried. Maybe my tears weren't so well hidden.

"Yes," I say, still staring at the ground and acting like nothing's wrong. I'm good actor, I've been acting all my life. The Institute is equivalent to some of the best acting schools in the country; It forces everyone to act invulnerable. Hard. Cold. Emotionless. No wonder the best assassins in the world originate at the Institute; they train us to be robots, cold hearted killing machines.

"Who are you?" That makes me glance up, tears forgotten.

"Who am I?" I ask almost to myself. "I don't know…" My eyes glaze over and my thoughts reel. _Who am I? _Such a simple question, hundreds of thoughts come into my head. Except, I'm standing in the middle of a whirlpool watching answers swirl past, I can't catch them, yet they whisper to me.

_Monster…_

_Murderer…_

_Cold…_

_Lethal…_

Really, it's the perfect combination. The attitude of the best assassin is always the same: Un-caring; we have to be able to kill anyone: A friend, a brother, A boyfriend. If one doesn't care at all, they could do anything. Anything that's considered 'evil' that is.

"When you figure it out, tell me," Jace stands, red streaks of hair obscure his sculptured features. Not that that would matter as the tears blur them even anyway.

He turns to go, part of me thinks it's for the best. _I'd only end up hurting him…_ but then again. I don't think it's possible to watch someone walk away without doing anything about it. Especially when the ache in your heart threatens to leave a gaping hole in your body.

"Didn't I just tell you who I am?" I try again, my voice carrying frailly over the wind.

He stops. "No," he says simply, as if that explains everything.

"Then what do you want from me?" I shout desperately as small drops of rain begin to fall from the dark storm clouds overhead.

He turns and slowly walks towards me, "You told me what happened to you," he says approaching me. I shiver from the unseasonably cold air and wrap my arms around myself. The rain gets heavier. "I want to know who _you _are because of it," he looks frustrated.

I get up from the swing, and blow out a breath. "I am cold." I say and force myself to continue, "I'm heartless, I've killed people before and I didn't care. I've spent my life wanting to be the best, and I didn't care what at. So when the opportunity rose to be the best at something I took it. I didn't care that I would have to kill people in order to reach that goal. I didn't care that that goal was being the best _murderer. _I was happy in that life. Then…" I trail off. Now I get into more dangerous material; now I've reached the edge of the cliff and I have two options: Jump (make him hate me, and run away) or take a step backwards (explain the next part). The only danger is if I step back someone can always push me off the edge and then I can't avoid the rocks at the bottom.

"Then…?" he prompts. _What the hell,_ I think and decide to step back.

"Then, I met you. Any you were- Amazing. You were just amazing and I could help but think about you. I wasn't faking it in the gym before. When I'm near you, the world spins and I become a babbling idiot. When I'm with you, I become someone I want to be. When I'm with you, I forget everything. There's only you. You. Are. The best. Thing. That has. Ever happened . To me."

His eyes burn into mine and we stand there for a few momently. Me, breathing heavily. Him, coolly and unaffectedly.

"What about Jonathon?" he says coldly and I wince at the reminder.

"I thought I knew what love was, I thought I had it with Jon. I was wrong. Jon and I were never going to last, he's too cold. I only realised that when I met you, Jace I know how you must be disgusted by me, and I agree there are some things that are unlovable. But, even the unlovable can start to fall for someone… someone far too goo-" his lips cut me off in a hard kiss; my fingers wind themselves in his hair. And he pulls me tightly against him.

"Never say that you are unlovable," he says roughly when we part his forehead resting on mine, "never say you aren't good enough for anyone, least of all me. Don't you get it?" I stare at him confusedly and wait for him to continue, "I don't care about your past, I care about who you are now." His beautiful eyes hold mine.

"You should," I whisper my gaze dropping to the ground, "I'm not good…"

"I know I should. I should care that you have a boyfriend, I should care that you've killed people. I should care… but I don't. All I care about is you, and how it kills me when I have to walk away. And how even though you are the daughter of the leader of our enemy organisation and I'm the grandson of the leader of yours, I'm still falling for you."

My eyes fill rapidly and as he gently tilts my head up and looks studies my face. He kisses once gently on the lips before pressing his mouth to my forehead and hugging me tightly against him.

"Jace, I think I'm falling in love with you," I mumble into his chest.

He chuckles, "Don't worry, I falling right with you," I giggle at his cheesiness and pretty soon we are both laughing, hard and loud. We sink to the ground as the rain gets even heavier soaking us and keep laughing. An old lady dragging a young boy through the rain stares at us with suspicion before tugging on the poor boy's arm causing him to almost trip in a puddle. Needless to say this only makes us laugh harder.

I had forgotten how barren Idris was. It wasn't until driving through the country side (90% of Idris) that I truly realised how far away we were from everything. I had no idea where we were driving all I know is that I was going to get my knife back.

Jace's car wasn't as nice as one might think, I expected the sleek, black cool car. It seemed like the Jace-y thing to drive. I was pleasantly surprised when he rolled around from the school car park in a loud, noisy, ginormous ute. A car person would probably point out the chips in the paint; the slight specks of orange rust on some of the metal work; and the fact that the engine doesn't purr, it doesn't even growl, it roars like an angry bear. The aircon was broken and the radio only took CD's. Except somehow when I saw it (her, I was corrected later) I couldn't help but think it was absolutely perfect.

We started going deeper into the shrubs and I had to ask: "Where are you taking me anyway?"

"If I tell you, you'd have to kill me," he says with a wink.

I scowl at him, then a look of horror crosses over my features, "It's not at your headquarters is it?" I ask.

"Yes and no... It's not Herondale headquarters as in the place you broke into yesterday," he says which just leads me into further confusion.

My brow furrows as I try to think of where he would stash my baby, I tried not to look too eager when he mentioned my knife, but I think (know) he saw straight through me. My knife is the one thing that kept me from drowning at the Institute, it was the first thing I excelled at and it was what I held onto on Christmas', Easters, any sort of public holidays. They weren't celebrated at the Institute, everyday everyone had things to do, places to go, people to kill. It made it all feel a little more like home. Then it hit me, and I knew with a sinking feeling in my gut where we were going.

"Jace!" I whisper yelled, not totally sure why since we were in a car and not actually there yet, "YOU ARE TAKING ME TO YOUR HOUSE, YOUR _GRANDMOTHER'S _HOUSE?!" Jace took one look at my furious expression and laughed.

"Relax Clary, Imogen is NEVER home. I mean think about it, she's just as busy as your dad, and how often was your dad home at-" he checks the clock on the dash, "4:30 in the afternoon?" he says, and he _does_ have a point; I mean I barely ever saw Valentine and I lived in the same building as him.

"Never…" I admit reluctantly and he grins, "no one likes a smug boyfriend," I tease him and he smirks in that heart breaking way of his.

"You know you love it," he says with a wicked glint to his eyes daring me to deny it. I bite my lip and look away trying not to laugh.

"Fine," I say slowly, "just pinky swear she won't be home," I deadpan and he looks at me quizzically.

"_Pinky swear?" _ he says incredulously, I just smile nod and hold out my pinky.

"Just remember no one can break a pinky swear," he grins and lazily hooks his pinky round mine.

"I _pinky swear _that my Grandmother will be nowhere in sight," he says just as serious and I settle into my seat and watch as we go deeper into the bush.

Jace's house is one of those old big ones, that are right into the bush, with the classic front porch and the painted white weather boards.

"Wow," I say as we walk up to it, "it's so… normal," I finish, my tone holds a lot of wonder and he knows that I mean it as a compliment.

"Come on," he says, "I'll give you the tour."

The house is amazing, yet simple. It's uncluttered and looks very different from where I grew up with my mum. Everything is neat and it almost looks untouched, I can tell that they don't spend a lot of time here.

"Imogen likes everything to me neat when she's home, which is never, so the house always looks like this," I can hear the bitterness in his voice as he talks about his family. I squeeze his hand, and he smiles down at me before pulling my up the stair case.

Upstairs is small and all the floors are carpeted, unlike down stairs. Jace takes me down the small passages pointing out the two other rooms, "And this is my room," he says opening the door.

From what I've seen of Simon's room I would usually say that boys are messy. Jace is not, his room is almost empty, there's a desk with a CD player on it, his bed is made and all that's on his bed side table is an alarm clock. The walls are white with nothing on them and from what I can see through the small gap in his cupboard all his clothes are neatly folded as well. The room it's self is mediums sized and because of the lack of furniture there's quite a lot of space to move.

The only thing that holds a hint of personality I discover is the music and the acoustic guitar probed up against the side of his desk. I wonder around and finger the guitar gently.

"I didn't know you played," I say and he bites his lip and looks down.

"I usually only play when no one's listening," he says shyly and I smile a bit.

"Will you play me something? If you do, I'll show you my thing," I say and that captures his attention.

Slowly he reaches for his guitar, he closes his eyes as he strums the opening bars to one of my favourite songs. My breath stops as he begins to sing, his voice is magical, I'm hypnotised by him.

"_And I'd give up forever to touch you  
Cause I know that you feel me somehow  
You're the closest to heaven that I'll ever be  
And I don't want to go home right now"_

He seems completely immersed in the music, but when he reaches the chorus he stares straight into my eyes and my heart flutters in my chest.

"_And I don't want the world to see me  
Cause I don't think that they'd understand  
When everything's made to be broken  
I Just want you to know who I am,"_

Time seems to stops as he continues, his fingers move gracefully over the strings and his voice is effortless, there is so much emotion in his voice but I can't help it; tears fill my eyes, I smile and wipe my eyes as I watch him play.

As he whispers the last few words of the song I don't realise but more tears are streaming down my face and he places his guitar down and walks over to me.

"Was I really that bad?" he asks, cupping my face and wiping the tears under my eyes.

"No, not at all," I say with a hiccup-y smile, "That was beautiful. You're beautiful," I say and then blush as I realise I called him beautiful.

"Thanks, Clary. That's what every guy wants to hear," he teases me with a smile, "so I revealed my soul to you, your turn," he says and sits on my chair as I stand up and walk over to my bag.

I pull out the old sketch book that I take everywhere with me. It's old, I've had it with me my whole life, some of the pages are yellowing and the outside is frayed leather that I hand sewed to protect it when I was ten. I also painted the Celtic design on the front in gold paint when I was at the Institute.

I sit in Jace's lap and he runs his fingers gently over the design, "did you paint that?" he asks his voice holds a bit of awe.

I nod my head and open the book. I look silently at the drawings of the pages as we progress through the book. Some girls keep diaries, I just tended to but all my feeling into pictures.

Most of them are grey lead drawings of girls, some part of me refuses to acknowledge the girl as myself. But I know that she is. I only realised then how sad I was as I watched the pictures flick past, the girl I drew was never happy. Often she was crying or alone, she was never drawn with anyone who looked like they wanted o comfort her. Jace wraps an arm around me and pulls me to him as he flips the pages over.

I try to hide my embarrassment when he reaches the more recent drawings, because suddenly the girl is gone, replaced instead by a boy. A boy with wings; A boy who highly resembles Jace. Suddenly the girl starts to look happy as her and the angel boy leap off a waterfall, I feel Jace smile at the memory.

The final picture is one I drew last night when I was stressing over Jace and his identity. The angel boy is carrying the crying girl in his arms and flying up towards the sky, and away from the darkness below, but the darkness has a hold of her hand and her heart glows black.

Jace stops on this one, and presses his lips to my head.

"Get up," he whispers.

"Why? What are we doing?" I ask as he wonders over to his collection of CD's after scanning a few covers he pulls out a disk and puts it in the player.

"Why CD's?" I ask as we wait for the disk to load, "Why not your iPod?"

"I don't know," he says, "CD's always seem more classic, they're stable, they're physical. The can't be lost in seconds."

"So what are we doing?" I ask as I stand in the middle of his room.

"I thought it was obvious," he says as he walks over to me, "We're dancing," he wraps his arms around my waist and I automatically wrap my arms around his neck.

We sway to the music and I recognise the song.

"How do you know all my favourites?" I whisper at him as we listen dance simply to _Here's to the nights. _

"What can I say, great mind think a like?" he whispers back and I open my mouth but he shushes me and we just stay like that. If I could have frozen that moment forever I would have, I would have made that song never end I would have stayed for eternity in his embrace and never needed escape, I could have died and been completely blissfully happy.

As the last few lines of the song played Jace bent down and whispered them into my ear.

"_Here's to the nights we felt alive  
Here's to the tear you'd knew you'd cry  
Here's to goodbye  
Tomorrow's going to come too soon"_

I could help it, I had to; I kissed him. Hard and passionately, it was the kind of kiss that no matter how o=hard you try to hold back you can't. I couldn't see myself ending that kiss and I could see Jace ending it either. So maybe it was a good thing we heard noises down stairs. Because that was the only thing that could have broken us apart.

I only wish the noises weren't voices.

"Jace, are you home?" A female voice called over the other ones.

"Imogen?" I whispered, panicked.

He nods grimly, "And she brought friends."

* * *

So... tell me what ya think, I'm on holidays so I don't have an excuse to update. Oh and Happy Easter to everyone, even if you don't celebrate it I don't care. I still hope you have a good day.


	11. Chapter 10 - Boyfriends and Bestfriends

_**A/N/: I give up. I could make all the excuses in the world (writers block being the main one) but the main point is I'M A LAZY BASTARD. Who started writing some non-fanfiction and is still thinking of whether or not to post that... Well this chapter took a lot of self discipline and I'm not entirely happy with it. It's a bit jumpy but what ever there are some more Clace moment (because I live for romance and fluff and writing them together makes everything more fun) but there is also some Best friend time. Which I think Clary needed. I really couldn't be stuffed reading through and editing this chapter so yeah mistakes are a given. Get used to it.**_

**_Anyways._**

**_I proudly announce that I own the Mortal Instruments_**

**_I also not so proudly announce that I am a compulsive liar and was lying about owning such a literary master piece._**

**_Alas it still belongs to Cassandra Clare_**

**_So REVIEW because it guilt's me into writing faster (imagine how slow it would be with out them) and tell me what you think etc._**

**_and most importantly ENJOY._**

* * *

**CHAPTER 10**

Jace and I sit a respectable distance away from each other on the black leather couch. Imogen's dark eyes dart between us, they take in everything. I think she has memorised every single hair on my head. I can't help but feel impressed, but then again a little disappointed; she shouldn't make it so obvious. Except she doesn't know I'm a professional, an average person wouldn't even notice.

My hands itch from where they rest in my lap and I stare at them intently as I try to embrace the "fuck-we-got-caught-making-out" look. Jace has it to perfection; in fact it makes me begin to wonder if this is a common occurrence. Oh who am I kidding? _Of course _this has happened before. People, who look like Jace, never seem to be single. I must have just happened to arrive on one of those strange weeks when there isn't a girl hanging off his arm.

Wait, who the hell am I to talk anyway? I actually _have _a boyfriend. Possibly two now. Shit, when did my life get so complicated? Seriously I spend my adolescent years dreaming of romance and love and all that shit, and when I actually get it. It fucks up everything.

Seriously I should have taken notes from all those rom-coms and romance novels that Izzy dragged me through and forced (ok, I may have acted like I was forced) me to read. Seriously, they seem to be truer than I thought.

Someone clears their throat from the other side of the room and Jace and I glance at the dark haired man, his looks very firm with a grim expression, but if I look closely I can see a little bit of laughter in his eyes. He looks familiar for some reason that I can't place. Maybe I glanced at his file or something… I shake it off and glance a Jace, he's gone back to the staring contest between his grandmother and himself.

"So," I say purely for the sake of breaking the silence, then realise I have no idea what the hell I'm going to stay. Everyone turns to stare at me and my neck starts to heat up, "I'm Clary," I say stupidly as if they don't already know, Jace smiles faintly and grabs hold of my hand. Imogen's eyes narrow.

"How long have you two known each other?" she questions sharply.

"4 days," I say at the same time as Jace says two weeks. The blush rises to my jaw, silently I curse my red hair.

Imogen purses her lips, "well?" she asks impatiently.

"Um, we've known each other two weeks and have been dating for four days," Jace says soothly and I have to admire his lying ability. His grandmother seems to choose to believe him even though I can see that she doesn't really.

"and you thought it was appropriate to '_make-out' _ when you knew I had guests coming over?" this is said directly to Jace.

My eyes practically bulge out of my head and swing to Jace. _He knew…_ my subconscious rears its ugly head and I'm seething on the inside. _He fucking well knew!? _

Jace looks sheepishly from me to his Grandmother, "I forgot?" he offers but the looks on both of our faces lets him know that he doesn't stand a chance. Imogen looks like she wants to slap him, but I beat her to it.

Let me clear something up now. I don't slap like a girl, I slap hard and after years being groped on public transport in New York City, and having girls constantly hit on my boyfriend. Well, that and years of self-defence. I _know_ how to give the perfect bitch slap.

The resounding smack echoes through the room and a nice red mark covers his cheek. He looks at me in shock. But I'm too busy being fucking pissed to notice anything at the moment.

"You _knew_?" I say it quietly, deliberately taking a step towards him. He backs away and raises his arms in the universal _I-surrender_ position. I can see Imogen smirking out of the corner of my vision and the rest of her friend in the room are trying to hide their laughter.

"Well, I-I thought you should meet my family," he mumbles looking anywhere but at me.

"there's a list of major moment's in new couples life," I hiss at him, "meeting their parents, is somewhere near the top and usually a girlfriend or boyfriend has at least a week to prepare!" I continue, more chuckles are made from around the room, but my eyes are only for the person in front of me.

"Well, I knew they would love you and if I told you that you were going to meet them you would have freaked out," he says his beautiful eyes implore me to understand, "forgive me?" he asks hopefully.

My heart, despite the rage, squeezes. I let out a heavy sigh, "fine," I say my anger slowly slipping away. I cross my arms over my chest and turn away from him, "actually one last thing…" I say spinning round and delivering another slap to his other cheek.

He just looks at me and I grin, "_Now,_ you're forgiven."

Jace grins back despite himself. A slow applause comes from beside us and I turn to look at Imogen, blushing as I realise what she must think of me. But she's smiling, "Jace," she says, "I think you've found your match in this one," she says with a wink and I look from Jace to Imogen stunned.

He smiles, "I know," he says and wraps an arm around me.

* * *

Dinner flies by after that, and Jace walks me to his car.

"See, it wasn't so bad," he teases me as he opens the door to his ute. I get in and pull the seat belt across me.

"No," I allow, "you got lucky," I say as he gets in on the driver's side.

"Is that an invitation," he says with a sly smirk and I open my mouth in mock outrage.

"How dare you insinuate such a thing Mr Herondale!" I reply shocked.

Jace laughs and starts the car. It roars loudly to life in the quiet surroundings.

"It's so peaceful out here," I sigh and stare out the open window.

Jace doesn't say anything and when I turn to look at him he's just staring at me, "what?" I say self-consciously.

"Nothing," he says quietly, "you're beautiful."

I flush with pleasure and go back to staring out the window, the green of it all blurs together as we race past, we must be going faster than the speed limit I think idly. It doesn't bother me; I know he's a good driver. And this close to midnight, there's barely anyone else on the road.

After a while of silence I reach for the radio, "Where do you keep your CD's?" I ask and Jace gestures to the glove department. I take a hand full out and flip through them, I raise an eyebrow at one of the disks.

"Chopin?" I ask disbelievingly.

"What? He was a fuck awesome pianist," he says confidently, but his ears go pink and I know I've embarrassed him.

I laugh and put the disk in the slot. He looks at me then changes the track the sound of the piano fill the car.

I open my mouth to say something but he shushes me, "just listen," he says and goes back to driving.

The song is sad and fills the car with melancholy, yet it's so beautiful that I'm left speechless. The simplicity makes me fall in love with it as the notes take over my mind. I've never listened to much classical music but I find myself falling in love with this piece as the music flows through me.

My eyes fill with tears as it reaches its climax and by the end of the song I can barely breathe.

"What song was that?" I ask after a moment of silence. I hastily wipe the tears from my eyes before he can see them, but it's too late, he noticed.

"Chopin's E minor prelude, it gets to you doesn't it?" he says softly, "it's one of my favourites, ever."

I just nod and stare out the window as a slightly more upbeat song comes on.

* * *

When we finally reach my apartment building, it's one am. The truck comes to noisy stop and then there's silence. At this time in the morning on a Monday, it's doubtful anyone in this town would be awake. Jace opens the car door for me and walks me to the door.

Despite the fact that we've kissed a few times it's still a bit awkward as we stand there, neither of us saying anything. Jace runs a hand through his already messy hair, the moonlight makes it glint a whitish colour and his eye's look like silver pools, I almost pinch myself trying to make me believe that he's mine and that this isn't some weird dream where I'm going to wake up and be in bed with Jonathon lying next to me.

_Oh shit Jonathon! _Guilt immediately consumes me. I can't believe I'm such a horrible person. I know Jon and I would never work but, it still isn't fair to him… I can't keep avoiding his calls forever, and shit what happens at school tomorrow? Sebastian will surely tell Jon before I can think of a good reason to be dating him. Shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit-

"Hey," Jace says smoothly the wrinkles that had appeared between my eyebrows, "what's wrong?" he asks sincerely and my heart squeezes. He's too good for me.

"I'm just thinking about tomorrow," I whisper and watch him frown, "What happens tomorrow Jace? What is going to happen when Seb and Izzy see us? What am I going to tell my dad… what am I going to do?" I ask helplessly and Jace pulls me against him. I bury my head into his shirt and breath in deeply, he smells like soap and dinner and a little bit of sweat from when we were fighting earlier, it seems like another life yet it was only a few hours ago.

"I don't know," he says quietly in my ear, "but we'll figure it out," he presses his lips to my head and after a few more minutes of hugging on the door step we pull away.

"Good night Clary," he says and I give him a small smile.

"Night."

My alarm clock wakes me the next morning at 6:30am. I can finally see why in movies teenagers are forever ditching school. Maybe if they had some form of decent punishment it wouldn't happen but then again there are always those kids who are willing to risk it. _Idiots_, I think remembering some of the people who would dare to skip a class at the Institute. Their punishments ensured that they would never do it again.

I glare at the floor, it was an unnaturally cold morning, although it would heat up by midday. The alarm taunts me as I lie there, this is getting ridiculous. With a groan I heave myself out of bed and practically run for my closet.

With a satisfied yell I find what I was looking for, I wrap the fluffy blue dressing gown around me and make my way into the kitchen. Mindlessly going through the motions of making coffee, smiling to myself as I think of what Jace would make of my boring choices.

A loud banging on the door shakes me from my revere, by default I make my way stealthily to the door and peer through the peep hole. With a sigh I pull open the door and stare up at Izzy's sickeningly awake and upbeat attitude.

"Why are you still in your PJ's Sleepy?" she admonishes as she brushes past me and into the room, she's wearing running shorts and a sports bra.

"Aren't you cold?" I ask incredulously eyeing her.

"Who, me? Never," she says as she walks around my house impatiently, she grabs hold of my coffee mug and after taking a gulp pours it down the sink.

"Hey!" I yell running over to the sink and watching my precious caffeine swirl down the drain.

Izzy shrugs and looks innocently at me, "hey, you shouldn't drink that stuff before you go for a run," then strides purposefully into my room, I trail behind trying to decide whether or not to be annoyed, amused or angry.

She quickly goes through my clothes before chucking a lose shirt and shorts at me, "get dressed," she says and walks out of the room shutting the door behind her, "you have two minutes."

I groan as I realise it's Tuesday, Izzy and I always go running on Tuesdays. This is usually how the routine goes: I complain she takes no bullshit and then we run until we can't feel our legs, and then comes coffee and a change of clothes. It's a good system, beside the whole _running and waking _part.

Five minutes later we are running down the road with no particular course.

"Somehow I think this beats Central Park," Izzy says evenly, it will be a while before she loses her breath.

"Yeah," I nod in agreement, don't get me wrong. Central park is amazing, but there's always a set course and over the years we've done them all. There is something exciting in not knowing where we are headed.

"This is nice," I continue as we run, "we haven't had some Izzy-Clary time in a while."

She looks at me curiously as we make a turn than leads us onto another quiet street, if you listen carefully you can hear the sounds of people making breakfast and running around trying to get ready for work and school and other various commitments.

"Is that what you prefer?" she asks quietly, "Clary?"

"I-I don't know," I say and look at her pleadingly; she seems to be turning it over in her head.

"You don't have to hide from me you know," she says again, "I won't judge. I know I'm not a morally good person. But it's all I have. There _is _nothing else," she's sad I think and I start to wonder about Izzy as a little girl, with no father, only a mother who has been hard on her since the day she was born. There has never been another option for her; there was never an alternate lifestyle. The first eleven years of my life showed me some of the true world. I always knew what it was like, I never realised what a shock this would be to Izzy.

"It's not all you have," I say firmly, "You have me and don't forget Seb."

She laughs without humour, "Seb?" she says the name like it's a joke, "Seb was-is nothing, he's a distraction, a way to spend time, to not be alone in my thoughts, Seb doesn't care about me. He just likes the way my body looks," she shakes her head and smiles but not with happiness, it's her mouth's default position, "Why do you think I encouraged you and Jace? I saw the way he looks at you, the way to you at him. It's strange, you have that spark and you light up around him. Jon never made you do that," she starts to jog faster and I speed up to match her pace, my short legs making it hard to keep up.

I blush a little, "Izzy, one day you'll meet that guy that you light up around, and when you do I hope to God it isn't as complicated as Jace and I's relationship, I mean how do I even break things off with Jon, without having to mention Jace? Why is everything so fucked up?" I say the last bit to no one in particular.

"Because life sucks," Izzy says simply and I can't help the laugh that escapes me.

We run for half an hour before stopping at the little magical café that Jace took me to. Izzy look apprehensive but I give her an encouraging nod and hold open the door for her, little bells jingle above the entrance and she steps cautiously into the small room, I can see her eyes taking everything in.

She turns to me with a million questions in her eyes, I grab her hand and drag her towards the counter. I recognise the barrister as the same one as last time. He smiles when he sees me.

"Back again? Did we win you over?" he asks with an easy smile.

I smile back, "yep, the coffee is too good," I say with a laugh.

"Who's your friend?" he asks nodding towards Izzy.

"Oh sorry, this is my friend Isabelle Lightwood, Izzy this is Alec… I'm sorry, what's your last name?" I ask blushing a little.

"Lightwood," he says, "that's strange, huh?"

"Yeah," Izzy nods as she walks towards the counter a bit more purposely, "well I suppose Lightwood is more common a last name than I thought," she smiles as she shakes his hand. There is something about seeing the two of them stand next to each other, but I can't put my finger on it.

With a sigh I shake it off and place my order as Izzy places hers. We find a table in the back corner of the room, there are only a few other people here most seem to be in their twenties and are engrossed on their laptops furiously typing, everyone seems to be so caught up in their own little worlds.

"This is nice," I say with a sigh, "I can't believe it's been what? Four days? It seems like months have passed since we've arrived," Izzy nods in agreement, before looking me directly in the eye.

"What are you going to do Clary?" she asks seriously.

I swallow, "I don't know," my breathless whisper is barely audible in the silent café.

"You never told me how you ended up at the institute you know?" she says abruptly changing the subject.

"Oh, well, I was kidnapped I guess," I say fiddling with a packet of sugar from the middle of the table. I barely rip it before flipping it and ripping the other end just slightly. I continue the process trying to see which side will tear completely first.

Izzy's mouth drops open and I can hear it clap shut again after a few seconds.

"What do you mean _kidnapped?" _her voice is a whisper and she leans across the table just in case one of the uni students decide to eavesdrop on our conversation. I doubt they would actually care even if they did here.

"Well, up until I was eleven I lived with my mum, here in Idris," I wait for the information to absorb and Izzy nods, silently telling me to continue, "I didn't realise she was probably hiding me from Valentine, well, from his followers. She thought-thinks he's dead."

"Wow," Izzy says, "Do you remember a lot from before the Institute?" she asks and I don't miss the wonder in her voice.

"Bits and pieces, Simon was my best friend back then," I say and a look of understanding passes over her face.

"Do you-" she cuts herself off and looks around the room quickly, Alec approaches with our drinks. He places a steaming mug in front of each of us and I stare the perfect shape the milk has formed on the top, it almost looks too perfect. I don't want to drink it purely to preserve the shape. Eventually caffeine withdrawal wins out and I take a small sip distorting the pattern.

Izzy gives a stiff thank-you to Alec and I smile at him. He retreats back to the counter and I stare at Izzy waiting for her to finish her sentence.

She takes a deep breath, "Doyoevawishyoudnevabeentaken?" she says in a rush and I understand absolutely nothing.

"In English?" I say amused and raising an eyebrow.

She glances around before she says in a lower but un hurried voice, "Do you ever wish that you'd never been taken?"

My eyes widen, what she's saying is possibly treason, she could be severely punished, and by that I mean killed. She is the last person I expected to her this from, well aside from Jon but that's never going to happen. The thought had crossed my mind a few times. If I had never been taken I might have met Jace differently I might have been able to have a normal relationship. Except if I hadn't gone we might not have had the connection we do, the understanding of each others lives.

"Sometimes…" I say matching her pitch. She leans back in her seat and relief washes over her body.

"Do you?" I ask and she tenses up again. She takes a long swig from her coffee before answering, but I already know the answer.

"Yes," she says like she admitting to killing puppies, (some things are just too cruel, even for assassins).

I smile at her and after a moment she grins back we smile over this tid-bit of information. The conversation lightens up considerably after that and we make jokes about TV shows and books. After a while we get changed in the café's bathroom and head off to school.

Alec waves us goodbye and I can't help but feel as if there's something I'm missing with the two of them.

A sick feeling pools in my stomach as we approach the school yard, students are milling around outside, most are probably hoping that the teachers will come out and miraculously say that school has been cancelled for today and we can all go home.

I strain my neck looking for him, unsure what the protocol will be for today. Will we ignore eachother? Will we act like nothing happened? Be friends?

"There's my girl," a voice that sends shivers down my spine says from behind me, strong arms wrap around me and I swing round to face my captor.

Jace crushes his lips to mine in a hard breath taking kiss.

"Morning babe," he says.

I guess that answers the question of how we would act.


	12. Chapter 11 - Beauty and Truth

**_A/N/: So...I have actually run out of excuses... I know, I know -a month! SORRY. this time it wasn't actually writers block, no that requires some clue of what to write. My problem is that I had NO IDEA what to write, I played with the idea of doing a JPOV and then I had no idea what to do with that so I decided to delay the problem and write this chapter. This is a flashback chapter, I know some of you mght find this annoying but deal with it. It's sad, I had to listen to moody sad music the whole time I was writing it. BUT IT'S ALL ABOUT JACE. so that's a good thing, right? right?_**

**_I'm taking your silence as a good thing._**

**_Oh, before I forget: BETAS NEEDED. as those of you have read my story know, my spelling and grammar is pretty god awful and someone who is unafraid to nag me into writing is wanted, also if you correct my mistakes, it would be greatly appriciated. _**

**_(Disclaimer etc.)_**

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**CHAPTER 11.**

**_11 years ago -a house in the middle of nowhere suburbia._**

He was asleep when they arrived; tucked safely into his bed at the end of the corridor, cocooned in his doona and at peace with his dreams.

His parents rarely slept these days; the mistake they made meant they would rarely sleep again. They kept a careful eye on the door and anyone who would knock. They had just moved and their security system wasn't up to scratch. They had to set up the weapons defence system when their son was asleep and he wasn't a deep sleeper; the last thing they wanted was for his inquisitive mind to start asking questions. He would find out eventually but right now they treasured his innocence.

It had crossed their minds to give him away for protection, but they just couldn't bring themselves to do it.

There was a knock at the door, the woman froze and looked across the room at her husband. The fear in her eyes was reflected in his, and he angled his head for her to go upstairs. Her eyes filled with tears and she nodded her head but not before quietly and quickly pulling the cushion up from the couch and sliding a pistol into the back of her jeans. She prayed the stairs wouldn't creek at she made her way upstairs when she reached the top she looked down at her husband.

"_I love you," _she mouthed and he blew her a kiss before arming himself and making his way slowly towards the door. She quietly ran down the hall and into the sleeping boy's room. Opening the door, she took a second to gaze at his small perfect sleeping form. His little chest rising and falling with each deep calming breath.

With a deep breath of her own she walked across the room and gently shook his shoulder. Sleepy eyes blinked up at her and she tried so hard not to let the tears fall over.

"Sweetie, you have to get up," she whispers quietly, her was about to ask way when she hushed him, "we have to be very quiet, come on we have to tip toe," the boy follows his mother without question, they've practised this. In an hour his mummy will come back and get him and then they'll move house again. They make their way to a small hidden closet in the wall. The boy climbs in and hugs his knee's to his chest while the woman tucks a blanket over him and gives him a small teddy.

"Daddy and I love you very much," she says, The boy stares at her wide eyes and they hear yelling down stairs. His mum's already pale face, goes white and loud bangs radiate through the house, there's more yelling.

Tears overflow over the woman's eyes and make glistening trails down her cheeks. The boys small hand reaches out and wipes them away for her, "I love you, mummy," he says.

The woman catches the boy's hand and brings it to her lips, "I love you too," her voice breaks over the words and quickly she puts his hand back and shuts the door making the small space blend back into the wall. She takes a deep cleansing breath and makes her way back down stairs, steeling herself for the scene that awaits her.

Blood has splattered the formerly clean white walls, there's yelling and loud gunfire, no one has noticed the figure on the stair way, the intruders are still trying to get past her husband. A sense of pride over takes her features for a brief second, before she masks her expression and takes the pistol from its place at the back of her jeans.

The man and woman lock eyes from across the room and she raises the gun, firing a few quick shots, one of the men fall down dead, his brains spread across half the room. Half the men turn towards her and it looks as if they have the positional advantage.

The man is close in with a few of the men and has to resort to his martial arts training, he uses some of the enemy as a shield, this works for a while until something hits his calf, at first there is nothing, and the man doesn't wait for the pain to come. He knows how to tolerate pain, learning to withstand torture always comes in handy.

As the fight rages down stairs, the boy hiding the wall grows increasingly worried. The yelling scares him and usually there isn't this many gun shots. He starts to count the bangs, when he reaches 80, he begins to worry. Shouldn't his parents have won by now? Slowly he pushes the door open and slides out of his spot in the wall, intending to have a small peak, to see what was happening. When he reaches the top of the stairs he ducks to the ground so people don't see him.

The living room floor is littered with various bodies, both his parents are still standing however and he breathes a sigh of relief. Blood rushes from a spot on his daddy's leg and it worries him. He comes out further from behind the railing to get a better look, when his eyes lock with his father's.

Until that moment he had never seen fear in his dad's eyes, his eyes widen and his mouth opens in surprise. The boy starts to wonder if he made the wrong decision coming out here to have look.

Another gunshot rings out through the room and a woman screams, as his father falls to the ground his head surrounded in a halo of blood. It doesn't make sense to the boy; why won't his daddy get up? He needs to help mummy with the bad guys, there's only two left. He realises then that the woman's scream was his mothers and her eyes swing wildly around the room, until they lock on his face.

"No!" his mother screams as one of the men smile and point their gun towards the boy, she sprints faster than she ever has and throughs herself in front the gun while shooting her own one. Her bullet hits the man and he falls to the ground with the rest of the bodies. Unfortunately not before the his gun goes off and hits the woman square through the neck sending her gun flying out of his hand.

There is only one man left and it finally makes sense to the boy what's happening: His parents are dead. It's his fault. They're never coming back.

The boy crouches stock still, when he notices the other man coming towards him, he recognises this man; he killed his father. Anger courses through the little boy and quickly he guns to where his mother's gun had landed. He'd never fired a gun before, but he'd seen his mum and dad do it on countless occasions. He remembers what he has to do, he brings his arm straight and points in it at the man.

The man's lips stretch into a sinister grin and he raises his own gun, "are you really going to shoot me kid?" he asks, "have you ever even fired a gun before?" he asks.

The boy shakes his head, mute. His eyes glazed over. The man laughs. A shot rings throughout the room.

The man's expression is surprised as he falls to the ground from where the bullet has cut through his neck; his blood joins those of the corpses surrounding him. The boy sinks to his knees and waits for tears to fall, but nothing comes. He just sits and waits. He waits for a long time until he hears sirens outside.

Men rush into the house, he raises his weapon slightly. Vaguely he recognises these men as good guys, they work with his parents. Men stream in and out of the front door, some taking photos, some taking bodies. No one seems to notice the small boy curled up on the stair case, splattered in his mother's blood.

Eventually a woman walks in; she exudes such a presence that even the numb little boy can tell she's in charge. Almost immediately upon her arrival she is surrounded by people all telling her various things. She dismisses them with a sharp hand gesture; they go silent immediately and look at her sheepishly.

Her eyes scan the room, when they land on the stair case she strides towards it immediately and squats down in front of the boy.

"Hello Jace," she says in a calm, soothing voice.

Jace's eyes lock on hers in response.

"How long have you been sitting here?" she asks patiently.

Jace raises five fingers.

"Five minutes?" she asks, Jace shakes is head, the slightly too long blonde curls bounce around, he holds up ten fingers.

"_Fifty minutes?_" she says, her eyes flashing with annoyance. Jace nods, worried that he might be mad at him.

"And, has anyone come up and talked to you?" she asks a definite undercurrent of anger in her voice this time. Jace shakes his head again, trying hard not to flinch; the woman notices this and her entire demeanour changes.

"Oh, Jace I'm not mad at you," she exclaims, "I'm mad because no one has helped you!"

Jace continues to stare at her blankly. Numbness has taken over his body; he can't feel anything and he can't bring himself to even try to. The fog makes it hard to concentrate on what the woman in front of him is saying.

Men begin to bring in hospital beds and large black bags, _body bags_ Jace remembers them being called, they're for the dead; people who aren't coming back; one of those people is the one he killed, and another two are his parents. A single tear forms in his eye, it sits there for a short while before slowly rolling down his cheek, it mixes with the almost dry drops of blood that stain his cheeks. By the time the tears falls onto his lap it is tinged pink.

_**Four days later… -New York**_

There's a common misconception amongst most people that because a person puts out a tough front, and speaks in a hard manner means that they are impervious to anyone or anything. These people are wrong. These people are bastards. Anyone can be hurt; it's just these poor pressured people who aren't allowed to let it out. These "tough" people are pressured to always remain calm and connected on the outside, when on the inside they try to disconnect themselves as much as possible.

Imogen Herondale is one of these people. She didn't get to where she was by showing weakness, by showing any strong emotions, unless it was anger. She is woman who would never let the death of two of her most valued agents, one of whom was her son and the other her daughter-in-law. Even if their only son was left orphaned and in her care.

She tried to not let Jace worry her; she had never actually met the child before the massacre, and since the massacre he's been… quiet. As in he hasn't said anything, at all. She got one of the agency's best counsellors working with him, but so far there seems to be no progress, but then it has only been four days. He hasn't cried, she doesn't know whether that's a good or bad thing. She doesn't know how to deal with tears, she leaves that to other people.

She finds a white suit in the closet and puts it on as quickly as she can, trying extremely hard not to think about why she's wearing it, or more importantly who it's for.

Once her hair has been scraped back into it's standard bun, she walks out of her room, her sharp heels clack on the hardwood floor as she makes her way to where a small boy dressed in white waits for her.

"Hi Jace," she says, "Are you ready?" she asks when she gets no response.

Jace gives her a quick nod. The butler opens the door for them and escorts them to the waiting car. The weather seems to reflect everyone's mood, grey clouds hide the sun and make the streets of New York seem all the more gloomy, despite it being the middle of the day, there is no rain, and only a slight breeze, just enough to raise goose bumps on any unprotected skin.

_New York Marble Cemetery_

The service is very quick, a brief speech and a poem:

_I died for beauty but was scarce  
Adjusted in the tomb,_

_When one who died for truth was lain_

_In an adjoining room._

_He questioned softly why I failed?_

_"For beauty," I replied._

_"And I for truth, the two are one;_

_We brethren are," he said._

_And so, as kinsmen met a night,_

_We talked between the rooms,_

_Until the moss had reached our lips,_

_And covered up our names._

There was very few people there to begin with, a few agents, a boy and his grandmother, all dressed in suits of white; as was tradition for those attending the funerals of fallen agents, their deaths were to be remembered, not mourned.

Soon after the casket had been buried the agents left and, only the two remained. They did not cry, they did not touch, just watched as the grass blades bended and gave way to the wind, watched as small drops of rain began to fall and dampen their clothes watched as the brand new tombstone glistened.

_Here lies Celine and Stephen Herondale.  
beloved parents, friends and family._

They sat, their knees stained green, and watched.

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**_So, that was... sad... I hope. Tell me what you thought please. Reviews are so easy to leave and make authors so happy (it's actually sad how happy) even those lazy authors who never update._**

**_The poem is called "I died for beauty" by Emily Dickinson._**

**_I have a love of poetry, and Emily Dickinson writes some of my favourite pieces._**


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